[rafiki6]

Technologists aren't doctors. Doctors are a necessity because people have an incessant need to stay alive. Technologists aren't a fundamental necessity to society. We are business people. The only rules/ethics that govern us are business rules/ethics. Some might argue, "but technology is required for us to survive". It's not. We've survived plenty without it. Technology is required for us to thrive.

[dragonwriter]

> Technologists aren't doctors.

Doctors are a subset of technologists.

> Doctors are a necessity because people have an incessant need to stay alive.

Medical care is an application of technology people are particularly willing to sacrifice other things to pay for, but not without limit.

That's not the only application of technology for which they is true.

> Technologists aren't a fundamental necessity to society.

Hard to say that's any more true than of Doctors; you can have a society without doctors or without other technologists, but if you do, people will very quickly start assuming those roles.

> We are business people.

Most technologists are not business people. A few are, but that's incidental, not fundamental.

> The only rules/ethics that govern us are business rules/ethics.

At least in formal terms, this is true of information technology, but it has nothing to do with necessity or lack thereof (it's not true of lawyers, who are certainly not necessary to survival.) It's just that IT (unlike medicine, law, or proper engineering) lacks professionalization.

[hueving]

Using technology != technologist in this context. Calling a doctor a technologist essentially makes everyone a technologist and the term becomes meaningless.

[dragonwriter]

You are welcome to pose a definition of technologist that included the people you mean to include and excluded the people you mean to exclude, but by any coherent definition doctors are as much technologists as IT workers in general, though I can see some reasonable definitions that would exclude most of both and only include a few of either.

But, in any case, the lack of formal ethical rules applicable to IT is not about how necessary technologists are or aren't compared to doctors.

[hueving]

Just Google it, I don't need to propose anything.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/technologist

[dragonwriter]

Neither of the two definitions at your link seems to serve your "include IT, exclude medical doctors" purpose.

[hueving]

Doctors are neither experts in a field of technology nor are they paid to operate technology.

[giaour]

This sentiment strikes me as naive. Doctors aren't the only people governed by a code of professional ethics: lawyers, civil engineers, and public school teachers can all have their licenses revoked for ethical violations.

Setting the bar at "a practitioner's malpractice could result in death or injury" ignores all other forms of harm

[TallGuyShort]

My university had us take the same ethics class as civil engineers, etc., and there was plenty of case study material where lax standards in engineering (including computer systems) had killed people. We can live without technology, but it's a lot harder to live when the optional technology that a lot of people choose to use starts killing people. It's important for engineers to understand the role they can and should play in advocating for safety and high standards.

It needn't be a focus of the education, but it should be a concern of universities to ensure students graduate with an understanding of the importance of integrity for society's good and how they can ensure their projects are ethical.

[criddell]

Technologists should study ethics and abide by a code not because technology is required, but because it's pervasive and often hidden.

[wu-ikkyu]

Without technology doctors/medicine would not exist (apart from perhaps foraging for medicinal plants)

[romanovcode]

The technology which is discussed here is not technology which you are referring to.

[Apocryphon]

To be specific, we've survived without monetized, big money-driven technology.

[matt4077]

This is obviously wrong on so many levels, but just to point out the most glaring flaw: How is ethics only relevant when people's survival is at stake?

[purple-again]

Well said. Those of us who came from a business background remember our business ethics in university well. The running joke, from start to finish, is a thank you for compiling together the things we should walk carefully and carry a big stick while doing.

[grasshopperpurp]

>The running joke, from start to finish, is a thank you for compiling together the things we should walk carefully and carry a big stick while doing.

These are the types we should weed out of society.