The only thing worse than an echo chamber is letting a self-created bad idea fester in the head.
I came to the conclusion a few months ago that software developers and coders who worked at Meta, Google, Amazon, etc are as culprit as their CEOs and the company itself. I will lay down my points below, but I understand that this might be a logical extreme of my distaste for these corporations.
Here’s my rationale:
- Actions of the company they serve: The corporations they serve actively disenfranchise users, track them, sell their private / personal information to unscrupulous parties without any care on how it affects the person, or the society. They thrive on engagement rather than content. They have “commodified” the fundamental right to privacy. This has real world implications that has directly resulted in the spread of misinformation, political unrest, threatened elections, riots, and deaths of thousands of people.
- Awareness of the consequences: By virtue of their position, these are people with the capacity to read, and think for themselves. There are news articles: across the political spectrum in all major news sites, that report how the platform/ company they serve negatively affects society. Facebook’s Cambridge Analytica fiasco, Snowden’s expose, etc are credible and well documented examples that even non-tech people are aware. Yet they choose to ignore all this, and continue working / seek to join these companies.
- Cowardice: It is often wrapped in the garb of “self-interest”, but they do not raise their voice when they know that the software and platform they’re told to develop is going to be used to spy on their brethren. They claim they’re trying to make a living, but can use their skills to develop counter products to these horrible companies, or work for those that are sensitive and conscientious towards customer’s needs and welfare.
You’re correctly assessing the situation but the conclusion you reach is wrong. Here’s how:
As another person said, just tack on no ethical consumption under capitalism and you’re golden. Soon you’ll be crunching through critiques of Goldman and speaking in ways that make normal ppl make the brotha eww face. But the big difference between just doing my job and just following orders is degrees of separation and situation.
Even though people in positions you describe at companies you’re talking about ought to be able to understand the connection between their work and the immiseration of all humanity, it’s very easy to imagine someone who through choice or ignorance doesn’t see that connection. Our higher education programs have been removing humanities and arts in favor of stem associated education and ideas like effective altruism are renewing the randian tradition. Further, the work of many people in engineering is partial and atomized. Who wouldn’t want to put in the time designing a hermetically sealed self oiling piston that never needs maintenance over a million cycles? Who wouldn’t refuse that job when shown the patent drawing in which it’s a crucial component of a captive bolt gun against a human head?
The situation itself can’t be undersold. Soldiers (and hired workers!) on trial for war crimes couldn’t claim they were just following orders because they saw directly what their labor wrought. There was no degree of separation. Our expectations for that closeness to atrocity are different than when there’s a few veils between us and the subject. We expect people to get a different job, to defect, to sabotage, to kill their COs.