The Hippocratic Oath is from the medical profession. In that profession, it is often necessary to damage a human being (make incisions, remove parts, chemo, etc.) in order to help them in the long term. Because damaging a person is inherent in the craft and we are dealing with human life, it is necessary to acknowledge and promise that the any damage is for the long term goal of healing.
In general, this same kind of consideration does not apply to engineering disciplines. For the most part, we are tasked with manipulating non-sentient elements like electrons or metal. Most of what you are talking about as negative are business goals that many of us do not have any decision about. If anyone should have to take such an oath it would be the business executives and government officials.
The only place which such an oath might apply is to our personal responsibility for what we create. But everyone's personal values are different. And at the end of the day, if you are not okay with what your business has tasked you to do, then quit. (Realizing that not everyone has a choice to quit, but people who might be tempted to take such an oath do have the choice.)
Indeed, but I'd argue that it's not necessary to physically damage a human being to harm one and that a lot of fields edging on the medical could use a Hippocratic Oath as well.
Physically harming a person directly doesn't apply to software engineers, indeed. But software engineers are entrusted with lives, wether it's in software for medical equipment, autopilots in transport or critical control systems in industries. Even though they're edge cases they are increasingly less uncommon.
And then there's that fine line that goes back to psychology again, like the creation of extremely addictive interfaces. You can argue about how much you need to protect people from themselves, but if developers themselves shy away from the products they invented because they personally can't agree with them anymore there might be a base somewhere for some kind of pledge or oath or union or whatever.
If you make that personal oath anyway, why not make it public? Maybe a lot of people agree with your points. And maybe it's something software developers can rally behind, which in turn gives a gaggle of faceless engineers at Facebook the chance to say come together and say: This new thing we're working on doesn't really agree with all the points we've discussed. "Let's take it up, they can't fire us all".
In short: maybe, just maybe, part of the personal of software engineers, developers and even UX designers will overlap and being able to stand behind these points publicly and together could make a difference in some cases.
And I saw you changed your reply, it's appreciated, haha! To be honest, I'm not that passionate on the topic, I hardly think it's viable. I just think it's worth of discussing and thinking about, and I am happy that people like yourself take the time to read and reply to my thoughts. The stance I took is a positive one and I'm trying to imagine ways it could or should happened. I'm just as happy to read reasons why it couldn't or shouldn't be!
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The Hippocratic Oath is from the medical profession. In that profession, it is often necessary to damage a human being (make incisions, remove parts, chemo, etc.) in order to help them in the long term. Because damaging a person is inherent in the craft and we are dealing with human life, it is necessary to acknowledge and promise that the any damage is for the long term goal of healing.
In general, this same kind of consideration does not apply to engineering disciplines. For the most part, we are tasked with manipulating non-sentient elements like electrons or metal. Most of what you are talking about as negative are business goals that many of us do not have any decision about. If anyone should have to take such an oath it would be the business executives and government officials.
The only place which such an oath might apply is to our personal responsibility for what we create. But everyone's personal values are different. And at the end of the day, if you are not okay with what your business has tasked you to do, then quit. (Realizing that not everyone has a choice to quit, but people who might be tempted to take such an oath do have the choice.)
Indeed, but I'd argue that it's not necessary to physically damage a human being to harm one and that a lot of fields edging on the medical could use a Hippocratic Oath as well.
Psychologists don't have a Hippocartic Oath for example, and they are able to severely harm people. Apparently psychologists in the CIA both think up and apply torture methods
Physically harming a person directly doesn't apply to software engineers, indeed. But software engineers are entrusted with lives, wether it's in software for medical equipment, autopilots in transport or critical control systems in industries. Even though they're edge cases they are increasingly less uncommon.
And then there's that fine line that goes back to psychology again, like the creation of extremely addictive interfaces. You can argue about how much you need to protect people from themselves, but if developers themselves shy away from the products they invented because they personally can't agree with them anymore there might be a base somewhere for some kind of pledge or oath or union or whatever.
If you make that personal oath anyway, why not make it public? Maybe a lot of people agree with your points. And maybe it's something software developers can rally behind, which in turn gives a gaggle of faceless engineers at Facebook the chance to say come together and say: This new thing we're working on doesn't really agree with all the points we've discussed. "Let's take it up, they can't fire us all".
In short: maybe, just maybe, part of the personal of software engineers, developers and even UX designers will overlap and being able to stand behind these points publicly and together could make a difference in some cases.
I can see that you are passionate on this topic. Good luck!
And I saw you changed your reply, it's appreciated, haha! To be honest, I'm not that passionate on the topic, I hardly think it's viable. I just think it's worth of discussing and thinking about, and I am happy that people like yourself take the time to read and reply to my thoughts. The stance I took is a positive one and I'm trying to imagine ways it could or should happened. I'm just as happy to read reasons why it couldn't or shouldn't be!