Ask HN: Useful civil disobedience measures a developer can partake in?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20666203

by nexuist • 7 years ago

17 9 7 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I am inspired by apps such as Firechat (https://www.opengarden.com/firechat/), Signal (https://www.signal.org/), and even Facebook (https://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/19/books/review/how-an-egyptian-revolution-began-on-facebook.html) to a degree.

What is missing from this space?

How can we make a difference?

jppope• 7 years ago

Organize people. Start with a small group, and focus on a small project. Grow that thing.

jessehorne• 7 years ago

Beautiful question, yet even now I am still unable to answer this for myself.

dannyw• 7 years ago

Start where you work.

Participate and start discussions around ethics when your company engages in something questionable. You don’t have to threaten your job, but you don’t have to accept as business as usual without any critical thinking.

Persuade your colleagues to do the same and lead by example.

Or just quit, if you’re working for Facebook. Insanely smart software engineers are not plentiful. If enough people declined to work for Facebook, they will be feeling an impact in their bottom line and scalability.

pinetopPerkins• 7 years ago

Start solo. I read the laws know the laws. Plan on getting arrested. Don’t insult anyone instead insult yourself. Write your message out(have a script)

shoo• 7 years ago

Jeff Schmidt's book Disciplined Minds discusses how to survive graduate education while keeping your original identity and ethics roughly intact. The book has some advice for how to operate as an activist in a professional role within an organisation, where your goals are quite different to the org's goals. Not quite what you're looking for, but a pretty interesting read: http://disciplinedminds.tripod.com/

another angle: ignore the developer aspect specifically and get involved with civil disobedience to aid existing groups that you wish to support, and gain experience on how to operate.

muzani• 7 years ago

We once had a flood knock out telco lines all over a state. Firechat was an option but nobody knew about it. What needs to happen is more education regarding these tools.

buboard2• 7 years ago

Cryprocurrencies

elliekelly• 7 years ago

Can you elaborate? What measures involving cryptocurrencies, specifically?

buboard2• 7 years ago

Promotion, creating onramps

Ask HN: Useful civil disobedience measures a developer can partake in?

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