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Comment by iugtmkbdfil834 | Hacker News Reader

I don't get it. Interesting problems are interesting problems. Granted, I don't think you see those at X, but xAI, Tesla or Meta? Sure. I am not even arguing 'money' or 'man gotta eat', but just seems like such an arbitrary thing to flag.. especially since it won't be documented anywhere ( 'we are anti-Tesla house' banner on main page for example).

It is silly.

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Interesting problems don't exist in a vacuum. I'm sure it was an interesting problem to figure out how to track people who opted out of tracking, how to build gas chambers, how to add lead to gasoline, doesn't mean one should choose to solve them.

> how to add lead to gasoline

Your other examples line up, but this wasn't a problem being solved - engine knock was a problem being solved.

I guess you could consider "literally building Skynet" to be an interesting problem, but you have got to have some pieces missing if "interesting" is the most appropriate assessment of that work.

It ain't silly. You're working for Hitler

If we are going to claim to be software "engineers" we have ethical obligations. That means that you don't just do whatever the person signing your paycheck says, you raise objections and refuse to do things that will cause harm.

In real engineering disciplines, engineers sign their name to key decisions and if people get hurt someone loses their license and their right to do engineering work. The world would be a better place if software worked that way, although it'd be harder for a bunch of sociopaths to become billionaires.

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