Programming is like the only thing I enjoy that pays money, fortunately it pays pretty well. I'm a CS major now but I feel like I'm betraying my values by doing something that pays so well. I know it's not necessarily bourgeois, definitely petite bourgeois but idk it still feels kinda gross

    • LargeAdultSon [she/her]
      ·
      4 years ago

      Thanks for the reading material - I appreciate anything that helps me structure my thoughts on ethical science, and the letter was a great first impression.

      Funny you mention pentesting - our students had to learn what they needed for that on their own for a while, because the telecoms lecturer we had at the time refused to teach network security out of fear that students would become 1337 HAX0Rs.

      This is something I've had to think about, because I love teaching control theory (and now that I've made a semester of videos for online teaching, I fully intend to do so on YouTube for free). Feedback control is essential for any system that must self-regulate, so in a world where nobody knows anything about it, you don't have guided missiles, but you also don't have insulin pumps, efficient power generation or electric vehicles. Knowledge isn't inherently good or evil, and denying somebody knowledge that they would use to benefit humanity is also effectively doing harm. (Hence why I feel so strongly about getting our course material out from behind the paywall.)

      The society that the students are going out into is a big factor: if I was American, I'd perhaps feel differently about teaching in this field because the majority of graduates do get sucked up by the military industrial complex. Here in South Africa, we only have one significant weapons company, but we do have a shitload of heavy industry and infrastructure projects that uplift communities, and require engineers of all shapes and sizes. (Pity that weapons company is one of the few places that gives really good bursaries... It's worth acknowledging that poor students have far less freedom to weigh up the ethics of who they work for.)

      I believe you also have a part to play as a teacher in shaping who your students become: the first thing that planted the seed of anticapitalism in my teenage brain was listening to our crew-cut disciplinarian biology teacher choking up telling us about abalone poaching, and the sick culture of greed and corruption that's destroying the natural world. So, in the introductory lecture, when I tell students about the applications of control theory, I make damn sure they know they are directly contributing to evil if they go in that direction. I also openly refuse to give anybody a reference for a job in that industry. The other academics I work with who have similar specialities feel the same way I do, so hopefully, together, we might have some influence.