[salawat]

My ethics curriculum while getting my CS degree basically highlights the last decade+ of big name tech companies as "things that should not be done for obvious reasons". So I avoided all of them, looking for some of the most boring, banal tech jobs/applications of computers to clerical work imaginable.

Imagine my surprise when even most of those jobs were founded on things/goals/ambitions/central risks that were also profound ethical lapses. I've gotten to the point where I'm honestly wondering whether humanity is even ready for ubiquitous computing, to which seemingly the answer lately trends toward "hell no". Great thing to only realize after 10 years in the industry.

Point being, ethics is something self enforced, and we've taken great pains to ensure there is no professional licensure body or anything else around software; in particular because of the fundamental asymmetry created by locking that fire away from mortals behind a bunch of barriers to entry. Those with tech will have an advantage over those without. This is a certainty. The price of that (intentionally opening access to expertise for anyone curious) is what we have now. The tech that gets implemented is a reflection of the collective soul of humanity. If Greed is God, and the Deadline and Sale take priority over Safety, Fitness for Use, Quality, and Characterization of the System-Under-Scrutiny; then previously mentioned lapses in the ethicality of implementations of computer systems are what we're gonna get, and the conscientious objector will just be walked out the door and the next practitioner less afflicted by scruples will be walked in instead.

I'm open, as I've always been to putting a thumb on the scales through greater organization of active practitioners to actually make a means to ensure some subset of systems don't get implemented, but I'm not sure that's the right answer. The right answer is to improve ourselves and our non-computerized ways of life so there is no damn incentive to make the Torment Nexus.

Easy to say right? But that execution... Oofta.