Andreessen's Corollary: Ethical Dilemmas in Software Engineering - Bryan Cantrill | Craft 2019
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters recommend it as a good talk on ethics in software engineering, and Cantrill himself cites it as capturing his views.
What it is
Bryan Cantrill's Craft 2019 talk on the ethical dilemmas software engineers face as software eats the world. He explores cases where engineering thinking conflicts with the law or personal morals, including Facebook's news feed experiments.
Recommended by 3 HN commenters across 3 different months, 2019 to 2025.
What Hacker News said
Recommends bitofhope · 2019-12 · on “Ask HN: Best Talks of 2019?”
This year's Cantrill talks include one on Ethical Dilemmas [0] and another on the "Moore's Law" paper [1]. Highly recommend both. [0] [this video] [1] [LINK]
Recommends Bayart · 2020-12 · on “SEC charges Robinhood $65M for misleading customers about revenue sources”
Bryan Cantrill has a talk on YT on ethics in software [1]. And as I remember it the take away is that the way we think about problems isn't very conducive to obeying the law, or being good to people in general. And I've got to say the amount of people I see thinking of regulations, social norms or morals as « cruft » is pretty alarming. [1] [this video]
Recommends earleybird · 2021-12 · on “CCPA Scam – Human subject research study conducted by Princeton University”
Bryan Cantrill (DTrace etc) has a good talk on ethics in software engineering[0]. Skip to 12:29 where he recalls Facebook in 2011 experimenting with users news feeds. [0] [this video]
Cites bcantrill · 2021-01 · on “Parler's home page is back online, but app still not in stores”
Yes, it was actually Gab -- and I talked about it in a talk on ethics on software engineering.[1] As you indicate, that talk captures my feelings on the matter, so I'll let it speak for itself... [1] [this video]
Cites bcantrill · 2023-03 · on “Signature Bank Closed by FDIC”
Yes, you have brought this up before.[0] And as I have said before[1] -- and will presumably say for the next 26 years as well -- I very much regret that quip. (The irony is that that was dredged up in part because people very strongly disagreed with my handling of the Noordhuis incident a decade ago.) But I will stand by my assertion that I have been outspoken about my disagreements with what I have found to be problematic in modern Silicon Valley, e.g. [2][3][4]. [0] [LINK] [1] [LINK] [2] [LINK] [3] [this video] [4] [LINK]
Cites Voultapher · 2025-01 · on “I am rich and have no idea what to do”
> Within 2 minutes of talking to the final interviewer for DOGE, he asked me if I wanted to join. I said “yes”. Then he said “cool” and I was in multiple Signal groups. [...] So I reached out to some people and got in. After 8 calls with people who all talked fast and sounded very autistic smart, I was added to a number of Signal groups and immediately put to work. [...] The next 4 weeks of my life consisted of 100s of calls recruiting the smartest people I’ve ever talked to, working on various projects I’m definitely not able to talk about, and learning how completely dysfunctional the government was. It was a blast. While I can attest that current day governments in general - some more, so
Cites bcantrill · 2025-02 · on “Oracle justified its JavaScript trademark with Node.js–now it wants that ignored”
I am glad to see that many people are being correcting you, but just to put a sharp point on it: I am using that metaphor to condemn Ellison, not to condone or accept him. Unfortunately, since that talk in 2011, what was an aberration (albeit a broadly unspoken one) has since -- tragically -- become the norm. I refuse to accept this, however: I will continue to speak my truth about the moral decay in tech, and why we must hold ourselves to a higher standard.[0][1][2][3][4] And I obviously agree with your indignation that poor corporate behavior should not be the status quo! [0] Principles of Technology Leadership , [LINK] (2017) [1] Andreessen's Corollary: Ethical Dilemmas in Software Engine
Cites Voultapher · 2025-03 · on “Ex-Facebook director's new book paints brutal image of Mark Zuckerberg”
It was also born by the guy - Zuck and arguably in a similar spirit - who initially created a hot or not webpage to rank female college classmates by "fuckability". No clue how any of this would come as a surprise if you know his history. Brian Cantrill talks about how social media was born crocked [1] while referring to the eerily similar friendster backstory. [1] [this video]