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by boboboba 2868 days ago
But how would that work? If I work on a word processing application, that application can be used to write horrible lies and propaganda that many people would believe. Are you saying I shouldn't work on such a product because of that?

If you look at the story of how browser cookies came about[0], it wasn't for advertising and tracking people. It was just intended to be a simple way to allow users to keep state between web pages to provide services the people wanted. It was later hijacked by ad companies to do surveillance and then the government hopped on board.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_cookie#History

1 comments

I think you make a great point. We _should_ question whether it's a good idea to make the word processor. I'm not saying it shouldn't necessarily be made but we should think about how it can be used and if the potential for harm is too high or if it can be mitigated. My point is these things should always be kept in mind and we need to not be afraid of not making the technology.