“I solve practical problems. Like where all the necessary holes should be on passenger aircraft, and when they should appear.”
“I solve practical problems. Like where all the necessary holes should be on passenger aircraft, and when they should appear.”
Not necessarily. But you’re still LYING when you say you don’t have control over your own actions. Again: YOU. ARE. NOT. AN. AUTOMATON. You ARE responsible for your own actions. If you’re not responsible for what your hands and your mind have done, who is? I am talking about right and wrong. If you do wrong, you do wrong. It’s truly upsetting, how many times I’m having to describe the concept of ethics to you.
I don’t need to show you any specific degree or experience to explain right and wrong. Ethics exist. It’s not a matter of opinion. It’s not a choice. If you participate in unethical behavior, you don’t just get to say “but someone else told me to do it,” and expect other people to accept that shit.
You accuse me of having a “twisted” sense of ethics. No. You have literally chosen to abandon the entire concept of ethics. You’re the degenerate, in this situation. You’re making excuse after excuse, not only for your own behavior, but for basically ANY person who has ever done anything wrong, in the entire field.
If you’re even still reading this, please take note of something: I actually WILL admit that I don’t know all the specifics of your personal situation. I am, in fact, NOT accusing you of anything.
We’re only in this fucking argument because you are ready and willing to say “LOL, IT’S OKAY THAT THOSE BOEING ENGINEERS COULD HAVE KILLED TWO OR THREE PEOPLE ON THAT ONE FLIGHT. IT WAS ALLLLL THE BUSINESS GUYS’ FAULT.”
Fuck. That.
Maybe your little penny-ante, we-designed-some-cheaped-out-brackets situation, with your not-Boeing, low-stakes-ass company was totally not a big deal. And not something you should have risked going to prison for. Whatever. Fine.
The following statement is the only thing I want you to agree with: “WHEN AN ENGINEER KNOWINGLY CHOOSES TO SIGN OFF ON A DESIGN THAT IS LIKELY TO LITERALLY KILL PEOPLE, HE OR SHE IS COMMITTING A SERIOUS BREACH OF ETHICS.”
That’s it. I’m not saying the suits aren’t also to blame. Of course they share the blame. But that doesn’t excuse the engineer abandoning his or her own ethics. I’m also not saying the situation is “easy.” I’m just saying, when it comes to the point of GETTING PEOPLE KILLED, you absolutely do bear the responsibility of your own actions, and I fucking expect you to do EVERYTHING in your power to prevent the death, report people to the authorities, refuse to get paid for killing people, etc.
I really and truly don’t think I’m being unreasonable. People only get one life. Real people have families who grieve for them, until their own deaths. You can’t undo death. So, yes, I expect EVERYONE to go to whatever length they need to, in order to avoid participating in murder. THAT’S NOT AN INSANE DEMAND.
Alright. Then imagine I am a kitchen knife manufacturer. I make a kitchen knife and sold it. Someone uses that knife to murder someone. Am I responsible for the murder? Because I just reduced the argument you’ve been making this entire time, except I removed the engineering part from it.
I make programs. I make them according to a specification, which is defined by the client AND the management. After I make the program, it’s out of my hands how the fuck it is handled. If one of those two parties use or modify the program in ways they didn’t tell me, and which eventually result in disaster, because they didn’t fucking tell me that they wanted to use it for those actions and I couldn’t possibly predict it, should I be blamed when the program fails? Normal glass bottles weren’t made to hold lava, why should I be blamed when someone uses the bottle to hold lava and ends up melting their hands?