I’ve been in tech for about 2 decades now, and the general culture has always been to disregard ethics and social impact. How many times have we heard “We’re just building tools. Tools are apolitical and ethically neutral, it’s how you use them that matters!” It turns out that is actually not the case.
Plus the insistence that we can cordon off an area of life and designate it non political is incredibly common but also pretty naive (and dare I say privileged).
That is to say, we in the tech industry often encourage this sort of moral bankruptcy and like to pretend we’re above it all.
I think a lot of that attitude is self-justification to proceed as they intend without moral compass. Personally I can't do that. Everything we do has a consequence.
I've got a copy of Careless People sitting in front of me I'm scared to read at the moment.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.”
It’s definitely a factor (perhaps the dominant factor) and the easiest place to see it at play is on HN whenever the adtech industry is being criticized.
Plus the insistence that we can cordon off an area of life and designate it non political is incredibly common but also pretty naive (and dare I say privileged).
That is to say, we in the tech industry often encourage this sort of moral bankruptcy and like to pretend we’re above it all.