[ar_lan]

I have no context of who you are/your position here, but the responses you're getting seem absurd to me.

I just don't understand people placing the blame on you when it should be on your company. Most people in the world are just trying to keep their job - you did it. It wasn't something illegal, it was something that if you didn't do, you would have risked your job and then someone else would have done it anyway.

[constantius]

Saying no is always an option, and this seemed like the opportunity for this. Highly paid devs consistently choosing to do this and using the "following orders"/"food on the table" defense should be socially unacceptable. However, the parent seems to feel no guilt despite the many comments blaming him, so I think protecting his feelings is not necessary.

[triceratops]

> using the "following orders"/"food on the table" defense should be socially unacceptable...the parent seems to feel no guilt despite the many comments blaming him

Wild to compare implementing dark UX patterns to working at a concentration camp. Why not blame the electorate for voting poorly?

[ar_lan]

90% of my coworkers are H1B and are basically perpetually terrified of being deported. I completely disagree with your assessment.

> so I think protecting his feelings is not necessary.

No, just the barrage of completely lacking-of-empathy responders need your white-knighting. It’s a good thing you’re here for them.

[nixon_why69]

You don't know anything about them. Do they have kids? On a visa? Both? Need health insurance?

Yes, "just following orders" was not an excuse for the holocaust but we're talking about a subscription here. I for one appreciate the honesty.

[59percentmore]

Because the difference between what he's done and, say, the practice of the people who peddled opioids for a paycheck is one of degree, not kind.

[sillyfluke]

Obviously the difference of degree on the spectrum between the two in this case does vary greatly, but your comment reminded me of an interview with a journalist who had compiled a collection of interviews with midtier drug dealers in various cartels and one thing that stood out to him was that almost all of them, when asked why they did what they did, would respond by saying that if they didn't someone else would.

[nixon_why69]

The difference between my sins or your sins and much greater sins is also one of degree, not kind.

You never lied or went along with something dubious? At least this person is being honest and reflective.

[DANmode]

> You never lied or went along with something dubious?

…no?

Certainly not where it impacted more than just me and one other person.

Why would that be normal?

[nixon_why69]

Seriously? No white lies or going along with anything that you didn't fully agree with, in your life, in all contexts? We're talking about kind and not degree here, per the comment I responded to.

Have you been fired from a job for standing on these ironclad principles?

[DANmode]

Left my best job/title for them.

Had my place to sleep as a young person threatened, for doing the right thing in the family business.

I don’t even feel good about Santa…

[nixon_why69]

Ok, well respect to you for whatever happened there, sincerely.

But all of us have compromised at some time or place, I have in some places and faced consequences for not doing so in other places. If you haven't compromised yet, then wait until you have a family to take care of.

I prefer being honest about the times I did compromise and took OPs comment in that vein. A true psycho would see nothing wrong and also not be reflective about it.

[SecretDreams]

Yeah, but it's multiple orders of magnitude apart.

Are we also going to start putting LLM engineers to the fire because they're accelerating the enshitification of our world? Probably not.

[LadyCailin]

That’s not a good example, since you can argue that LLMs have utility to humanity. Hiding the cancel button has none, except for rent seeking.

[angrysaki]

The bigger difference is that the net utility for LLMs could turn out to be massively negative

[LadyCailin]

Maybe! But that’s certainly debatable. “I thought I was doing the right thing” is anyways a much better defense than “I was just following orders” anyways.

[SecretDreams]

Rockets have value to humanity too, but some people that worked on rockets ended up working for people that did not want to use rockets to improve human life.

[forgetfreeman]

"I was just following orders" is not, and has never been, a credible defense of unethical behavior.

[littlecranky67]

Unless you were in the US. There it always worked.

[inigyou]

It's always worked everywhere. It even worked for the original people who used it, except for a few of them.

[Computer0]

I see it everyday

[account42]

Blame should fall on both. The deliberate evil at the top and the banality of evil at the bottom.

[atonse]

Exactly. Those low quality comments are an example of the sad erosion of quality of comments on HN that I and others have complained about in recent times.

[ToucanLoucan]

It's perfectly valid in our increasingly enshittified world to be angry with all those responsible for it. As much as you're right to point the finger a the C-suites, ultimately ALL of these user-hostile features, every single one, only exists because devs keep putting fingers to keyboards in exchange for checks.

Tech workers had a time where unionization and getting a voice in our companies was very much on the table, and the biggest voices among us shouted down the others in the name of rockstar salaries and free beer at the office. The "top contributors" at huge companies were scared shitless that they might have to accept a wage too much like the REST of their software engineer coworkers. The horror.

[blackqueeriroh]

This is a deeply ignorant comment. Do you understand how much money you have to have IN SAVINGS in order to be able to weather even a moderately short hospital stay in the United States when you’re uninsured?