alt Hacker NewsPeople here complain that programmers aren’t engineers because real engineers can accidentally kill people and get sued if they mess an equation up. Instead of just breaking a build or something.
I think it’s more concerning that programmers seem to have no care or shame about designing systems that works against the users’ interests. Did you share something intimate in our chat? Well it’s not E2E, moron, we have that now. How could you be this stupid?
I can’t think of another profession (except pure value extraction types) which revels in exploiting people for not having the time or care to arrange their digital lives around the booby traps that nerds set for them.
Replies
As an old-school programmer who thought computers would improve people's lives back in the 80s when I was a wide-eyed teenager.. I am constantly appalled by the current generation of SV people who are very right-leaning and are happy to steal anything and everything they can. It didn't seem like this 20 years ago when I started. I hate the advertising industry with a passion.
Anecdotally, it feels like it fits right in with the "if there's no cop around to give me a ticket, I can drive however I want" attitude I've seen post-Covid. People entering two-way turn lanes or HOV merge lanes to PASS people in the main lane. People going through stop signs without any stopping while I'm waiting for my turn. Using the HOV on-ramp lane with only the driver to merge onto the freeway where it's clearly marked "24 hour HOV lane", etc.
It's as if the entire social compact evaporated during/after Covid, and "everyone only out for themselves" is the norm now.
Or maybe I'm just more aware of it and more cynical.
It really cannot be both ways--the tech industry cannot both be producing critical infrastructure and be immune from liability. We've tried this experiment before, and millions suffered and died needlessly. We have electrical codes, building codes, automotive safety standards, etc., because many, many people died preventable deaths. With the amount of leverage tech has over the economy I don't think it's reasonable that we don't have software engineering codes and professional accountability. But I have absolutely no confidence we'll get there until there are multiple deadly catastrophes over a series of decades.
A thief thinks everyone steals.
I’m afraid you don’t understand humans. Yeah, if you completely strip every detail you get a picture like that, a very convenient one to blow all the righteous steam on some amorphous homogeneous “programmers” mass. World is not simple, it’s the opposite of that.
When a poor lad comes on a work visa and is elevated from a literal poverty to a somewhat decent standard of living, would you expect them to stand up and make sure some camera recordings can’t be used in a way they aren’t supposed to be used? Do you expect them to even consider if their management may abuse that some years in the future (when the code is an unholy mess of duct tape and all the effort goes into making it work for the stated purpose), when their mind is all busy thinking about bills, health, family abroad, and the general sense of doom impending with pandemics and wars and extreme corruption all around? Nah, that lad’s also being exploited here, not exploiting others. Not that any sins are absolved but he’s a lot less of a monster than your comment paints. And there are corporations with tens of thousands of such lads and lasses and other folks. And that’s just one of myriad of possible nuances that break the trope of evil programmers screwing the world up.
Blame the rot that starts at the head, it’d be at least a bit more accurate.
> I can’t think of another profession
That’s because you framed the criteria so narrowly that it includes almost only programmers. And even then you still confused between management and implementors. And even then you’re forgetting the management, who’s definitely more to blame than workers.