Software has always been politics. Most things are. People like to say they or their work is apolitical. But that's not really the case. What's more accurate to say is that those people are accepting the default political settings of their employers.
> The inability of Facebook's user interface, until recently, to distinguish between real and fake news is the most blatant example.
Are you serious? Why don't you blame paper for inability to "distinguish between real and fake news"?
People can't distinguish true from false, not Facebook. Blaming a platform for spreading fake news is like blaming a knife or a gun for a crime.
What I agree of is a lot of toxic people try relentlessly to bring politics into software development, with affirmative action and delusional striving for "equality" and "diversity".
Screw it, software development is about skills and merit. Go push your agenda somewhere else.
>You could see all of this in a negative light. Run for the hills and disconnect! Reality or nothing!
>I have another idea:
>It's time to stop designing digital services to just be easy to use and start designing them to be understandable, accountable, trusted, and easy to use.
I think the author's triad of adjectives (understandable, accountable, and trusted) is widely applicable.
It seems this article is more focused on software safety than political systems.
Conflates "government" and "providing services". The later is a small part of the former.
Software isnt political. It has impacts upon politics, but name something that doesnt? We cannot saddle coders with the political outcomes of thier code. Down that road are restrictions on research (to head off changes to encryption) or communication of ideas (to head off copyright violarions).
That said, anyone asked to create the tool for "identifying muslims" knows what they do. But that isnt so much software as the use of software. That person isnt creating software but keying for a paticular trait. The same code would find people who like ice cream or who are at risk for some rare disease. We dont blame someone who creates code to calculate safe drug dosages if that code is then misused in capital punishment.
Software isn't politics anymore than physics is politics. The atom bomb had huge political effects but the fact that atoms release energy when split is not.
The only reason software has become political is because it is in the best interests of the entryists because it gives them power.
Don't give power to the least tolerant, don't let them win by politicizing your hobby and/or career.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 21.8 ms ] threadOften without knowing what they are.
Are you serious? Why don't you blame paper for inability to "distinguish between real and fake news"?
People can't distinguish true from false, not Facebook. Blaming a platform for spreading fake news is like blaming a knife or a gun for a crime.
What I agree of is a lot of toxic people try relentlessly to bring politics into software development, with affirmative action and delusional striving for "equality" and "diversity".
Screw it, software development is about skills and merit. Go push your agenda somewhere else.
>I have another idea:
>It's time to stop designing digital services to just be easy to use and start designing them to be understandable, accountable, trusted, and easy to use.
I think the author's triad of adjectives (understandable, accountable, and trusted) is widely applicable. It seems this article is more focused on software safety than political systems.
Following the author's analogy with the industrial revolution, I think the development of safety regulations for industrial workplaces in the US is fascinating. http://eh.net/encyclopedia/history-of-workplace-safety-in-th...
I wonder what safety regulations for software systems would look like.
Software isnt political. It has impacts upon politics, but name something that doesnt? We cannot saddle coders with the political outcomes of thier code. Down that road are restrictions on research (to head off changes to encryption) or communication of ideas (to head off copyright violarions).
That said, anyone asked to create the tool for "identifying muslims" knows what they do. But that isnt so much software as the use of software. That person isnt creating software but keying for a paticular trait. The same code would find people who like ice cream or who are at risk for some rare disease. We dont blame someone who creates code to calculate safe drug dosages if that code is then misused in capital punishment.
The only reason software has become political is because it is in the best interests of the entryists because it gives them power.
Don't give power to the least tolerant, don't let them win by politicizing your hobby and/or career.