this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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Why would you discourage interesting, original journalism over such an obtuse nitpick?
They are clearly criticising the same capitalist structures that you are. They single out the tech industry because the article is about the misuse of tech, not because they think rank and file tech workers are deviants.
Frankly it comes off as fragile and dismissive, and if that's what we're doing we could have just stayed on reddit.
While the tone of the comment is dismissive, they have a point.
It's not the engineers that are the problem, or even limited to the tech industry. Dark patterns are top-down business decisions, motivated by money.
It's not that the "tech industry doesn't understand consent," but rather that greedy people do evil things. And software is just a low hanging fruit for that kind of business.
Okay, but what is the utility in taking the title so literally and ignoring the real content? It's a vague and mildly provocative title that is quickly clarified.
The article doesn't argue that the tech industry is uniquely evil. It is just spreading awareness about a specific phenomenon that is currently happening in the tech industry. That is what good journalism is. People can't organise a response to something they don't even know about.
Besides, the tech industry does have its own culture and that culture is full of problems. Capitalism is very top-down, but it's our shared culture that allowed tech solutionist billionaires to be embraced as heroes for so long. The least we can do is dispel the bad ideas they hide behind so people stop waiting for tech to save them.
And sorry if my tone seems rude. It's not intentional, it's just a frustrating subject to think about.
This is absurd. Everything about software engineering is culture. It's built around shared cultural artifacts and texts. The idea of tech and a tech industry is a purely cultural delineation.
Self-congratulating and utterly defeatist at the same time. Sorry but if you ever want a union it's pretty important that your colleagues don't think some CEO is the messiah. If you really haven't noticed a shift in the perception of tech billionaires in the last 10 years I don't know what to tell you.
So you're a historical materialist who thinks we need a communist and/or anarchist revolution to save us, but who also thinks that we can sit around doing nothing until someone invents one in their garage? What on earth are you talking about?
Okay but HOW? You seem to think an article that documents the exploitative behaviour of capitalists is somehow actively obstructing this revolution.
Just following orders, right?
Come on, that’s not how morality works.
Are you seriously suggesting knowledge workers have no responsibility for how their work is used?
We have limited options in what we can do to get money. I currently have a job where I'm proud of what I do, but it took decades of working for assholes to get there. Even now I'm not comfortable with everything I'm asked to do. I push back when it's unethical, and sometimes that changes things. Sometimes it doesn't and I just have to do as I'm told. What's your life like?
I directly tell my managers that what they are asking for is illegal, and then I refuse to do it. So far, I've yet to be forced to "do as I'm told," and I doubt that this will ever be a problem for me as I don't intend to sign up for the military or any other organization that can actually force people to follow orders.
I don't get asked to do illegal things fortunately.
But you do sometimes get asked to do "unethical" things, and you're "proud of what [you] do" even though "sometimes … [you] just have to do as [you're] told." Why? It sounds like you've chosen a compromised position "to get money."
Because we're all human beings and we all think slightly differently to each other. If I wanted to only work with people who exactly agreed with me about everything, then I would only be able to work alone.
I'm not talking about things that are red lines for me, just preferences. If it were something that caused me dissonance I'd move on again, I promise you.
I'm lucky enough to have the background and the aptitude to get a new job whenever I want. Most people aren't that lucky.
There are absolutely the problem, that's actually the difference between a programmer and an engineer: the liability.