Comments on: Ethics in Programming

By: lorg

lorg — Sun, 21 Mar 2010 11:22:31 +0000

Daniel:
Your sentiments are shared by many people I discussed this with.

By the way, others would avoid jobs even without a competing offer at the time (planning on an offer in the future).

For example, I know an accountant who gave up a job in a cigarette company. (Talk about “Thank you for smoking” :)

By: Daniel Goldberg

Daniel Goldberg — Sat, 20 Mar 2010 18:06:18 +0000

I have issues with most of your list (bar the illegal ones like spam/hacking), but it comes down to the particulars. Is this something I’d be proud of doing (like in Atwoods post)? Does this challenge me technologically?

If a job is pure cash, and I have competing offers to do stuff that is less ethically annoying (advertising >> spam jobs) then yes, I’ll avoid some jobs.

By: lorg

lorg — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 19:49:11 +0000

David:
At no point have I made a “blanket indictment of advertising and marketing”! On the contrary, I’m advertising my own website, http://plnnr.com …
However, it seems to me that some people would consider advertising evil no matter what. I don’t. Maybe the placement in the list was a bit misleading, but my intention was to give a list of jobs in which anyone could find at least one job he/she wouldn’t take.

Also, even jobs that I don’t like and are on the list are not an indictment. For example, personally, I don’t like DRM too much and would prefer avoiding work in this area. Still, I consider DRM to be an honest work. I also consider “lawful interception” legitimate.

Lastly, the list is far from a complete. There are more jobs I can think of that can make their way inside.

By: David R. MacIver

David R. MacIver — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 09:11:57 +0000

I’d possibly refine your first question to “Would you refuse to use the product yourself?” – I’ve worked on several products which I have no ethical problem with but which I’m not in the target market for. Made it hard to retain interest sometimes, but it certainly wasn’t an ethical issue.

I’d also disagree with the blanket indictment of advertising and marketing (and, to a lesser extent, SEO): There are a lot of very bad examples of them, but they’re not inherently evil. Ultimately good advertising is a service to the recipient of the advert as well as the person doing the advertising. It helps them find useful and interesting things which they otherwise might not have. Of course you don’t want to get involved in misleading or intrusive adverts, but that’s just a sign that the domain in question has its own ethical standards which you need to apply when working in it.

By: lorg

lorg — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 07:33:35 +0000

R:
You’re right, although different people would consider this less gray, and more of a black white issue.

Avi:
1. Thanks for the compliment…
2. So if you’re not a science major, and you’re a bit more experienced in “thinking, discussing and reading” about this – what do you think?

By: avi

avi — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 06:47:39 +0000

Nice post, nice wonderings.
It’s sometimes funny though to see science majors stumble upon moral issues and react somewhat like teenagers, as they have little experience thinking, discussing and reading about such subjects.

By: R.

R. — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 22:40:19 +0000

You get further into the gray zone when the context changes; for instance, is hacking OK when the target is an individual criminal? a criminal organization? a terrorist organization? an enemy country? a malevolent exterrestrial life form?