Comment by ryandrake

7 days ago

AND, whenever you suggest here that engineers should consider the morals or ethics of what they are being asked to work on, you often get lots of push back in the comments. "I just want to work on cool tech! It's my company's problem what they use it for!" and "Hey, I'm just a code monkey, don't blame me! If my manager tells me to build the Torment Nexus, I build the Torment Nexus!"

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ryandrake

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absurdo  7 days ago

Some time later on HN front page:

> Why I left FB,GOOG,Whatever

>> Author describes seemingly abhorrently unethical and immoral practices they were completely ignorant of, occurring right in front of them that they were a key participant in.

>> Accepted a massive salary to be ignorant.

>> Shocked as all fuck about ethics and implications.

>> Returned 0 money, cashed out.

>> 100% ethical now.

LadyCailin  7 days ago

This is one of the main reasons I’m for licensing software engineers like civil engineers are. You know that without a license, you can’t work in the civilized world. So when your license requires you to not build the torment nexus, and some manager comes and says “build the torment nexus” then you tell them no, knowing that they can’t just fire you and hire someone else to do it. Yes, they might outsource it, but you can create regulations that say that companies that offer products in the civilized world anyways can’t offer the torment nexus as a product, and then you get a super compelling argument for preventing the torment nexus.

The plan isn’t without flaws, but nobody ever even wants to discuss, they just cut off the conversation early.

  • CamperBob2  7 days ago

    You don't want a licensing requirement in software engineering. That attempts to solve the problem in the wrong place entirely. The problem is that it's legal to build the Torment Nexus.

    Licensing would raise your costs and restrict your choices, while having absolutely no effect on issues like what's being discussed here. You would just get a more expensive Torment Nexus that may or may not be slightly more secure.

  • icedchai  7 days ago

    Yes, they'll just outsource it. Plus, it could be argued that localhost tracking is not actually illegal in the jurisdiction where it was developed (debatable, I know.)