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pfdietz 3 hours ago

> It's up to us, as tech workers to push back against this.

This appears to me to be unrealistic or performative, except if you mean pushing back in the sense that anyone could, as a voter for example. Boycott of defense work won't work; attempting to claim some special authority in debate won't work either.

datsci_est_2015 2 hours ago | parent [-]

The opposite of performative action is even worse: nihilism or even active support of atrocities.

Too many nihilists in the tech industry with the attitude “if I don’t do it someone else will”, and here we are as a professional class actively making the world an objectively shittier place. The VCs can’t do it without us.

ForHackernews 2 hours ago | parent [-]

This is exactly the problem: Software developers are not a professional class, we are hired goons with no professional organization nor a code of professional ethics.

This is one of my personal bugbears. I keep making this point on HN but devs want to LARP as professionals so they usually don't want to hear that they have more in common with retail workers than they do with carpenters, engineers, or accountants.

Previously:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47625159

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932441

datsci_est_2015 an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Maybe AI will provide an impetus for change. One can only hope.

I’d be willing to pay a few hundred dollars a year to be a part of a professional organization that maintains ethics requirements at this point.

mikestew 37 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

Yeah, and read the responses to your comments: "but, but, 'professional' is a state of mind, not just a piece of paper" and some crap, completely missing the point. Professionals push back with "I'll lose my license/certification/disbarred". Software developers push back with "yes, sir, how high, sir?" or "I quit".