I think these debates tend to dramatically overemphasize the size of group one, to the point of being misanthropic ("grow a spine"?). A fundamental fact of life is that people have vastly diverging belief systems and that those in the ivory tower don't always know what's right or best.
There's a tangential group to this, which are the people who work on something they don't consider unethical, but may change their minds when they learn the true scale of what they are part of (it's unlikely many people in the NSA outside the very top have full visibility on all the programs detailed in the Snowdon leaks, and it's very possible that each, viewed in isolation and with the right context can be quite defensible).
The second suggestion overemphases just how attractive hanging out with judgmental purists actually is. Today it's NSA, tomorrow it's people who work on social gaming, the day after it's finance and the next it's ads. These sectors are already shunned by (some? large? At least they're vocal.) parts of the tech community that considers themselves and their endeavours morally superior, yet they thrive just fine.
The NSA is different from all your other examples, though. Finance, social gaming, ads and pretty much everything else is or can be regulated by the rule of law.
Intelligence agencies cannot.
There is no precedent of a surveillance society that managed to keep from turning authoritarian. Why should anybody assume that this time is different?
Of course intelligence agencies can, should be and are regulated by law. Sometimes they manipulate the law in their favour and sometimes they break it, but so do the other fields, most notably finance.
But more importantly, law and ethics are not the same thing. Merely not breaking the law does not make you an ethical person (and that's not the point of the law). Conversely, breaking some laws under some circumstances does not make you an unethical person.
> "I think these debates tend to dramatically overemphasize the size of group one, to the point of being misanthropic ("grow a spine"?). A fundamental fact of life is that people have vastly diverging belief systems and that those in the ivory tower don't always know what's right or best."
You seem to have not fully read my comment, or misinterpreted it.
I am not telling people who consider their (in my opinion, unethical) work to be ethical to grow a spine. Disagreeing with with other people, even me, on matters of ethics does not imply that somebody is spineless.
Performing a job that you consider unethical makes you spineless.
I am telling people to act on their own assessment of their work. Frankly I shouldn't even need to tell people that, it is practically tautological how common sense it is.
The quoted line is more responding to your second paragraph, not your first: "Obviously when we tell engineers to consider the ethical implications of the project that they are working on, we are talking to the first group"
No, I think when "we" tell engineers that, we're addressing a straw-man, posturing and showing off our superior ethics. Imagining that there's an audience of engineers who just need to be told that what they're doing is unethical is vain.
The "first group" refers to "The people who agree that the project they are working on is unethical".
Telling people to, in essence, 'follow their heart' and do what they think is right is not "posturing and showing off our superior ethics". If they think that their work is unethical, then they should not do it.
The third paragraph is the paragraph that endorses posturing and showing off our superior ethics.
There's a tangential group to this, which are the people who work on something they don't consider unethical, but may change their minds when they learn the true scale of what they are part of (it's unlikely many people in the NSA outside the very top have full visibility on all the programs detailed in the Snowdon leaks, and it's very possible that each, viewed in isolation and with the right context can be quite defensible).
The second suggestion overemphases just how attractive hanging out with judgmental purists actually is. Today it's NSA, tomorrow it's people who work on social gaming, the day after it's finance and the next it's ads. These sectors are already shunned by (some? large? At least they're vocal.) parts of the tech community that considers themselves and their endeavours morally superior, yet they thrive just fine.