I’ve written code that was later used by militaries, terrorists, pedophiles, and others. The American navy uses my code. The IDF uses my code to plan their attacks on Gaza. Some folks use my code to share CP.
The same code is used to help defend folks who have been arrested by corrupt cops in Brazil and also to manage Japan’s power grid. It’s used by universities to improve the services they provide and by some smaller companies making tinder-like apps to help young folks hook up.
How it’s used is completely out of my control. If I didn’t work on it, someone else would. If nobody did, all of those people from my examples would just be using something else. The world wouldn’t have been a better or worse place. I’m nothing but a small cog in a large machine and if I don’t do my part to keep the machine running, all that will happen is that I’ll be replaced by another cog and be left to rust.
Now, I’m not trying to advocate for nihilism here. It’s more of a “pick your battles” point of view. If I didn’t do the tools that are being used for evil, it wouldn’t stop evil, so the only thing that quitting would help is my consciousness. It wouldn’t improve the world in any way. However, my own life is certainly improved by this work and by living in better conditions, I’m much more capable of doing good things for the world if I so choose. I personally believe that this is much better.
Of course if I could just change jobs to something that doesn’t help evil, that would be preferable.
Nope. Started as a boring b2b product, over time it evolved to be more generic and usable by pretty much anyone. It was about three years after the first release that we found out it was being used by terrorists (I think ISIS?) , then pedophile groups a few months after that. Both were brought to our attention by random news on the web. They weren’t our customers, but official militaries for a few countries actually are.
As a general rule, sure. In my specific case it’s just the truth. We have dozens of competitors that can do everything our software do - and they are probably used for other evil purposes too, along with many noble or just boring uses as well.
And one thing I might not have been clear about: I’ve never done anything specifically for those people, it’s just that they happen to also use the stuff I worked on.
I’ve written code that was later used by militaries, terrorists, pedophiles, and others. The American navy uses my code. The IDF uses my code to plan their attacks on Gaza. Some folks use my code to share CP.
The same code is used to help defend folks who have been arrested by corrupt cops in Brazil and also to manage Japan’s power grid. It’s used by universities to improve the services they provide and by some smaller companies making tinder-like apps to help young folks hook up.
How it’s used is completely out of my control. If I didn’t work on it, someone else would. If nobody did, all of those people from my examples would just be using something else. The world wouldn’t have been a better or worse place. I’m nothing but a small cog in a large machine and if I don’t do my part to keep the machine running, all that will happen is that I’ll be replaced by another cog and be left to rust.
Now, I’m not trying to advocate for nihilism here. It’s more of a “pick your battles” point of view. If I didn’t do the tools that are being used for evil, it wouldn’t stop evil, so the only thing that quitting would help is my consciousness. It wouldn’t improve the world in any way. However, my own life is certainly improved by this work and by living in better conditions, I’m much more capable of doing good things for the world if I so choose. I personally believe that this is much better.
Of course if I could just change jobs to something that doesn’t help evil, that would be preferable.
What was you initial intentions when writing the code? Were you paid to do it for a specific project that was obviously used for “bad”?
Nope. Started as a boring b2b product, over time it evolved to be more generic and usable by pretty much anyone. It was about three years after the first release that we found out it was being used by terrorists (I think ISIS?) , then pedophile groups a few months after that. Both were brought to our attention by random news on the web. They weren’t our customers, but official militaries for a few countries actually are.
I’m not trying to critique or judge you, but I think it’s worth pointing out this is a logical fallacy.
As a general rule, sure. In my specific case it’s just the truth. We have dozens of competitors that can do everything our software do - and they are probably used for other evil purposes too, along with many noble or just boring uses as well.
And one thing I might not have been clear about: I’ve never done anything specifically for those people, it’s just that they happen to also use the stuff I worked on.