I'm a CS major who had to take ethics, but the REQUIRED textbook was written by the professor teaching the class. Managed to get through the semester with an A without buying it and called him out in the class survey.

[–] expr@programming.dev 5 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I was required to take an ethics class, but it was a complete joke. Guy just wasted a bunch of time on very surface-level, Philosophy 101 stuff like talking about who Aristotle was. I'm not sure we even had homework actually. Real ethics were nowhere to be found.

[–] jasory@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago

I'm fairly certain that people who advocate for teaching ethics, only do it under the assumption that people are being taught to do what the proponent wants. In reality learning ethics is just learning different theories of ethics.

[–] GoMati@lemmy.world 0 points 5 days ago

Problem is: non-ethical projects tend to pay more or take advantage of the situation. I know what I mean: when one of my projects fell apart recently I was approached by a "Battlefield Management App" which I could develop, of course for "the good guys"™.

I chose unemployment because that's not the world I want to develop, but I can totally imagine that in a more dire circumstances (I'm in debt with family to take care of or it's war and I'm running out of money fast) my choice could've been different.

Still, ethics would be good, even if it wouldn't magically save the world 💪🏻

[–] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz -5 points 1 week ago (3 children)

Ethics are worthless if you’re not the one calling the shots. Your only options are doing what you’re told or quitting.

[–] mobotsar@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 week ago

Sure, but it's important to know when to do what you're told, and when to quit.

[–] SoftestSapphic@lemmy.world 9 points 1 week ago

If every engineer was too ethical to create nukes we wouldn't have created nukes

[–] palordrolap@fedia.io 7 points 1 week ago (2 children)

There's at least one other option: Making it look like you're doing what you're told.

[–] pohart@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

My first assignment as a professional programmer I balked at. I said it was "Unethical and immoral." And when they told me I "had to do it" I said that I don't and that they shouldn't find someone else. My boss stepped in, chewed me out and told me to she would do it. Instead of putting her foot down there was just always another priority. It never got done in the ten years of the project.

[–] tomenzgg@midwest.social 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

What was the assignment?

[–] pohart@programming.dev 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Yeah, I'm not sharing that. I'm fairly sure it was legal, though.

[–] tomenzgg@midwest.social 2 points 5 days ago

Heh, fair enough.

[–] squaresinger@lemmy.world 1 points 6 days ago

The KPI approach.