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this post was submitted on 20 Nov 2023
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imagine sitting down to code this and thinking you're doing the right thing
you should be able to whisteblow clearly evil technology and have some sort of economic safety net
Counter point: the code monkeys just do what they are being paid for. The fact it's so easy to circumvent is a testimony on how the people implementing this shit disagree with the corporation.
Hi, code monkey here - I don't work for a large company like Google, am paid less than a Google code monkey, and the products I work on are used by orders of magnitude less people. But even still, if my lead came to me and said "hey, I need the frontend to detect when a user is using 'XYZ Browser' and then introduce an artificial 5 second latency whenever they try to load a page", I'd look at him with incredulity and tell him "no, I'm not doing that. That's stupid and you should feel bad for suggesting it."
Code monkeys aren't paid to simply follow instructions given to them by someone else like some sort of robot - were paid to create applications and programs that people can use, and are usually given enough creative room to do that in a way we see as the best way.
I feel like these things are connected.
Maybe it was unclear. If I get fired for insubordination or whatever, I would be in much more pain than a Google code monkey, because I'm paid much less.
Are you thinking about it another way, where because I'm paid less, I wouldn't care if I got fired, which makes me more emboldened to push back on my higher ups?
Sadly, salary and loyalty to the corporation are often proportional is what they meant.
Right, gotcha. In my experience, software developers are a bit more principled (maybe fickle is a better word lol) than that. Sure there are some dedicated "company man" types, but for the most part software devs are more loyal to the work/end product than the company
Of course my experience doesn't speak for anyone else's, take all this with a grain of salt, etc, etc
I mean they need money to live
Google developers can easily find a job elsewhere. If they stay at Google the chose to.
Isn't it one of Google's 'creeds' to "Don't be evil"?
I heard they quietly dropped that as their motto several years ago.