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Please talk me down: "I'm just doing my job" is the new "I was just following orders".
(lemmy.world)
The only thing worse than an echo chamber is letting a self-created bad idea fester in the head.
I came to the conclusion a few months ago that software developers and coders who worked at Meta, Google, Amazon, etc are as culprit as their CEOs and the company itself. I will lay down my points below, but I understand that this might be a logical extreme of my distaste for these corporations.
Here's my rationale:
- Actions of the company they serve: The corporations they serve actively disenfranchise users, track them, sell their private / personal information to unscrupulous parties without any care on how it affects the person, or the society. They thrive on engagement rather than content. They have "commodified" the fundamental right to privacy. This has real world implications that has directly resulted in the spread of misinformation, political unrest, threatened elections, riots, and deaths of thousands of people.
- Awareness of the consequences: By virtue of their position, these are people with the capacity to read, and think for themselves. There are news articles: across the political spectrum in all major news sites, that report how the platform/ company they serve negatively affects society. Facebook's Cambridge Analytica fiasco, Snowden's expose, etc are credible and well documented examples that even non-tech people are aware. Yet they choose to ignore all this, and continue working / seek to join these companies.
- Cowardice: It is often wrapped in the garb of "self-interest", but they do not raise their voice when they know that the software and platform they're told to develop is going to be used to spy on their brethren. They claim they're trying to make a living, but can use their skills to develop counter products to these horrible companies, or work for those that are sensitive and conscientious towards customer's needs and welfare.
This reminds me of something I worked on at my last job. I made software to detect plumes of dust pollution from a mining site blowing onto a nearby school and town. The EPA issued fines if they detected too much dust over the town. This system could catch it early for quick intervention.
After it was deployed, I got a glimpse of their production config. They hadn't configured the alarms for early intervention. They had configured them so that they could get as close as possible to their allocated limit before they intervened at all. Because, ya know, spraying water on stockpiles of ore is expensive.
Fucking mining companies, man.
I think you should've reported them and probably even destroyed the software so the whole thing shut down.
Report them for what. Fact is the EPA set a limit and they set their software to get as close to it as they could without going over. This is how markets work. This is how corporations work. This is why self regulation is a joke.
It's just how limits work.
The issue isn't with the software.
Imagine if I had photo radar sending tickets for people who were "almost" speeding.
The software config isn't about "the markets" or "corporations".
yeah that was my point. the regulators. whether self or an agency. will set where this goes.
Report them for breaking the environmental laws? I thought what they did directly violated them.
no. he was saying they would detect it and only take action at the last moment to avoid hitting the limit. Like they could have set it up to reduce it any time it was unusually high to head it off before it even got close. Obiously you don't want to be constantly spraying it but you could do it when it was like one or two standard deviations above norm.
Then why did they need the software in the first place? Just for marketing or showing fake "environmental progress"?
they needed the software to be in compliance at the very slimest margin the software and sensors would allow for. The goal was to pollute as much as they are allowed to and not a drop less.
I get it but why did they want it to have the early alerts and stuff? But I guess it makes some sense to detect emergencies and analyse the situation better.
For mitigation efforts. This chain has been long but I recall the original replier mentioned spraying it. From what I know im guessing the detector is for particulate matter from piles of mining crap leftovers and they spray it so the wind won't blow it around but they don't spray it until they have to because money. honestly we need @pHr34kY@lemmy.world for the specifics
This was at a stockpile yard at a port where raw mined materials were stored before being shipped.
Basically, if the wind was blowing strong enough in the right direction, it would blow over a nearby town. The problem wasn't really knowing where the dust was going, but where it was coming from. Accurate monitoring could detect exactly which pile the dust is coming from, so you could direct all the water to the source. It's impractical to wet the entire yard, as it's huge.
Not if they stayed under the limits.
Idk, I feel like the sort of technology you helped make can be used to help mining companies not accidentally (being generous) go over the limit because they can better monitor it, right? So on those grounds the limit could now be lower.
Like if my house randomly leaked water and I had no way of reasonably detecting it then the limit would probably need to be higher but once I had a way to spot and fix the problem I shouldn't be able to get away with the same limit.
But at the same time I doubt the EPA is unaware of monitoring methods.