> I would argue that you have a moral and ethical responsibility to say no when your manager asks you to do something illegal, even if it does cost you your job.
When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent moral and ethical, even if the downstream outcome is not. That is because it is the socioeconomic system rather than the individual who is acting immorally.
> The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it.
This is an infantile view. The law is a framework and there are lots of circumstances where breaking it is not only excusable, it's the only moral action.
> When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions
This is the time when your ethics are tested. Anyone can do the right thing when they're getting paid for it.
Nah. I’ve been in the exact situation you describe and it’s pretty obvious tbh. Loss of a job is a temporary setback. Being locked up in a jail is a permanent one.
> There was a lesson to learn from the holocaust. We're always reminded that: "Never forget, we've learned our lesson." "What was the lesson?" That's the question. The lesson is, "You're the Nazi". No-one wants to learn that; If you were there, that would have been you. You might think "Well, I'd be Oskar Schindler and I'd be rescuing the Jews." It's like, no, afraid not. You'd at least not be saying anything. And you might also be actively participating. You might also enjoy it.
Hindsight theoretical morality is very different from experience on the ground, where peer pressure, stress, uncertainty, exploding situations and fog of war come into the mix.
Seems like a better lesson would be "don't be the Nazi."
It's not like it's impossible. The Nazis arrested 800,000 Germans for active resistance activities, and several hundred thousand Germans deserted the military, many of those defecting to the Allies.
It wasn't a huge percentage, but we don't know how many actively resisted without getting caught, or resisted in more passive ways. And that was resistance against the Nazis, who had no qualms about killing resistors. Risking or quitting your job to not only do what's right, but avoid getting in trouble with your government, isn't in the same ballpark.
I thought the lesson was to not base your morality and what you are willing to do on the laws, because they can change at a whim. And for the democratic politicians, don't play with fire and take problems seriously.
You might want to think about why Petersen wants you to think you’re the Nazi. What change is he trying to effect in our culture, and how does that belief support his desire? Rhetoric always aims to effect some change in the attitude of the listener, and never without some benefit of the speaker.
Not that person but the my take on their take is that Peterson is greasing you up to accept more authoritarian control since he puts you in the in-group of the oppressors to ease the societal drift.
I don't necessarily agree. I think he is pointing out that people morally grandstand and the majority will not act out how they say they would.
> You might want to think about why Petersen wants you to think you’re the Nazi. What change is he trying to effect in our culture, and how does that belief support his desire? Rhetoric always aims to effect some change in the attitude of the listener, and never without some benefit of the speaker.
What benefit do you think he's trying to get from it? I'm honestly trying to figure out the nefarious angle and coming up blank.
It seems to me like a very similar sentiment to that great "are we the baddies?" sketch from Mitchell and Webb. [1] I see both as an exercise in moral humility.
See the Milgram experiment, or the Asch experiment. Most people do cave to pressure from authorities and the group. Everybody believes they're they exception. Statistically, most of them are wrong.
We're not talking about living in a totalitarian state and breaking the law by aiding the resistance here. The cases in the article is like committing financial fraud or faking customer data. And then, yeah, I do think there is no excuse for going along with it, you have a duty as a member of society not to do such things, even if it costs your your job. It's not easy, and as I said I have enormous sympathy for a person in this position, but there is a clear right thing to do, and you have an obligation to act accordingly.
At least in the case of engineers, we're talking about highly compensated people. You should have a solid emergency fund put together within a few months of starting your career. From there, it's on you to not put yourself into an economically precarious position. People who are making multiples of the median household don't have food/shelter as an excuse.
Not that it's much of an excuse for everyone else either, but with people in the professional-managerial class it's absurd.
Globally, most software developers are not highly paid and certainly not enough to be above financial pressure.
Becoming a whistleblower or refusing unethical demands can also lead to being blacklisted, as in most industries, loyalty is valued more highly than ethics.
If you want to fight corruption and unethical behaviour, start with a just society that doesn't tie a person's value and well-being directly to their income. Otherwise you're fighting incentives and will never win.
You don’t get to a just society by not fighting corruption. Ask yourself not what “engineers globally” can do, but what you can do. Historically, pressure from the educated middle class has made huge impacts on culture and society.
Corruption is both a systemic and moral problem. You can’t build a just society without confronting corruption and you can’t sustain anti-corruption without reducing inequality.
To get rich at your software startup is not one of the situations where you have a moral obligation to break the law. None of these people were stealing bread from the rich to feed their children.
Right, saying outright that Thoreau was wrong and also that pretty much every famous person who took him to heart was wrong too is a rather strong position to take and likely very, very hard to defend.
Or, for a more obscure example, that Antigone should just have said 'yes daddy' and left it at that with the play ending somewhere in the initial conversation with Ismene.
> […] that's inherent moral and ethical, even if the downstream outcome is not. That is because it is the socioeconomic system rather than the individual who is acting immorally.
Wow. This is incredibly dangerous way of thinking. Are any “downstream outcomes” justified as moral in such a case? How about outcomes involving people dying eg due to safety or quality rules broken? People may do things like that “to feed their kids” but that does not make it ethical, especially when we actually talk about preservation of certain social status rather than real survival.
On the contrary, it seems more acceptable now than 37 years ago - the “unacceptable” meaning that was already residual then (and not mentioned in the article at all!) is even more irrelevant today.
I think it's used less than 37 years ago in that sense - and it was not much of an issue back then (at least in the US, that article doesn't mention that tinker could be considered offensive while it talks about 'wetbacks').
You believe the slur is used now more than 37 years ago or something?
The formation etymology (whether from tin or onomatopoeia) is uncertain. The part that is certain is the semantic chronology. The noun tinker was used from at least the 13th century for an itinerant mender of pots, the Travellers. By the 16th century it became a slur for Travellers.
The verb to tinker doesn’t appear until the mid-17th century, first meaning to work as a tinker and only later coming to mean what you're familiar with.
So while the root word’s sound-shape is debated, the order of senses is clear: the Traveller sense comes first, the modern “casual repair” sense comes later and was derived from it. This is the etymological order given in all sources, eg https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/tinker
Does this page show something different in your region? For me it doesn't say anything about what you're claiming it does outside of one "chiefly Ireland, sometimes offensive" definition. The etymology only says "Middle English tinkere", and the history explicitly states its first use as being the not-"chiefly Ireland, sometimes offensive" definition. The etymologies I was seeing show it going from "this is a word that describes a job" and branching to "this group of people does this job a lot, let's call them this word" and "fiddling with things to do anything is close enough".
I'm genuinely interested in this, I work in what's a relatively "woke" domain (education) and I've never heard a complaint about something being called "tinkerable", even from colleagues in the UK.
Let's say you're correct. If "the etymological order given in all sources" is yours, shouldn't you be able to provide an example of that instead of one that requires assuming you're correct and reading words that aren't in the definition, while ignoring the listed etymology?
> the order of senses is clear: the Traveller sense comes first, the modern “casual repair” sense comes later and was derived from it.
The order of the senses is clear but different:
The "mender of kettles, pots, pans, etc.," sense come first.
The “gipsy” sense comes later an is derived from it.
The “repair or put into shape rudely or temporarily" - and later "work imperfectly, work in an experimental or meddlesome manner; keep busy in a useless way" - sense also comes from the first one.
[…] is to be considered that genuine Gypsies have often been spoken of as "tinkers" (chaudronniers) on account of the occupation with which they have long been associated ; and that, although there is no known mention of "Gypsies" in the British Islands prior to the fifteenth century, there are many earlier references to "tinkers" or "tinklers," as they are called in Scotland. […] "Tinkler can be traced back to about the year 1200. Tinker and Tinkler were not uncommon titles at that time. […] All these seem to have had fixed abodes, and not to have been of the same itinerant class with which we now associate all tinkers, and which used to require the epithet 'wandering' to distinguish them." […] To the same purpose as the opinion expressed in this last sentence is Crofton's observation made elsewhere, that "all Gypsies may be pedlars, brasiers, or tinkers, but the reverse may not follow."
[ Scottish Gypsies under the Stewarts; David MacRitchie; 1894 ]
> 1) The "mender of kettles, pots, pans, etc.," sense come first.
> 2) The “gipsy” sense comes later and is derived from it.
This is controversial, but even if accepted, that still leaves 4-6 centuries where the term referred exclusively to Travellers before the verb came about directly from that meaning.
Tinker as a verb is recorded in the sixteenth century.
And what does "directly from that meaning" mean when it's obviously about the action of mending and not anything else related to the group of people associated with the occupation?
Even assuming that this derived meaning was indeed the primary meaning of the word at the time, which is unclear (let alone the "exclusive" meaning):
Ti'nker. n.s. [from tink, because their way of proclaiming their trade is to beat a kettle, or because in their work they make a tinkling noise.] A mender of old brass.
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> Who is Tom Snout?
ChatGPT said:
Tom Snout is a character in William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
He is one of the “rude mechanicals” (a group of Athenian tradesmen) who gather to put on a play—"Pyramus and Thisbe"—to perform for Duke Theseus’s wedding.
Occupation: Tom Snout is a tinker (a repairman of metal household goods, like pots and pans).
Role in the play-within-a-play: He is assigned the unusual part of “the Wall,” through which Pyramus and Thisbe whisper their love. He literally has to hold up his fingers to represent a gap in the wall.
Characterization: Like the other mechanicals, he is comically earnest and takes his role very seriously, though the performance ends up being hilariously clumsy.
Would you like me to also explain how his role contributes to the comedy of the play?
> Is he a Traveller?
ChatGPT said:
Not in the sense of being a “Traveller” as in a wanderer or member of a travelling people.
Tom Snout is just a local Athenian tradesman in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Shakespeare introduces him as a tinker (someone who fixes household metal goods). He’s part of the group of craftsmen—Bottom, Quince, Flute, Snug, and Starveling—who rehearse and perform the little play for Duke Theseus.
So no, he’s not depicted as a traveller in the story—he’s rooted in Athens, more of a comic “ordinary worker” than a roving character.
> colloquial meaning carries all of that baggage. You just weren't aware
The baggage—hell, all meaning in language—is carried by awareness. We don’t consider the word hostile racist because we’re not ancient Romans facing the hostis.
Maybe there is a cause to censor the word tinker in British English. What there isn’t is censoring it in American or international English.
You are going on a very weird crusade in this thread. Literally have never heard this in my life used as any kind of slur and here you are arguing with everyone about it.
I was an infantry soldier and learnt very fast how fragile the logistics of necessities can be in the modern world.
I don't believe that world civilisation will collapse (at least not in any way that can be prepared for), but I have moved out of the city, begun to farm organically, and have a plan to cook and live without mains power or fuel for months on end. I know people think I'm a nutjob, but I've also seen first-hand whole cities who thought that progress was a one-way street end up in terrible circumstances.
That said, I'm not an alarmist. I am a founder, put a sizeable amount of my wealth into the global stock market, drive cars, fly (outside of COVID-19) to various places, and - most riskily of all, IMO - live only 1.6m above the high water mark/strand line of the sea.
> live only 1.6m above the high water mark/strand line of the sea.
Wow. I put myself in your shoes for a second and felt fear. Otherwise your life sounds pretty desirable. I always wanted to do the same (be self-sufficient in such ways). I probably will never be living like that (unless homelessness count, bleh), but good for you, I envy you. :)
> Wow. I put myself in your shoes for a second and felt fear.
It is actually the only thing that keeps me up at night. I am crew on a lifeboat and need to live within a certain distance from the boathouse, otherwise I would move tomorrow. The RNLI is too important a part of my life to leave behind otherwise. I may be able to afford some land higher up (60m+ in the future).
> I always wanted to do the same (be self-sufficient in such ways).
I am definitely not self-sufficient (especially not socially)! I could maybe take care of my family for one calendar year (one growing season and one winter), but it's a maybe. If we're talking about a situation where people are physically (violently) competing for resources, then I'd be in the same boat as everyone else (by design, I'd add - I have no desire to be the lone survivor behind a fence or whatever while other families starve).
> I probably will never be living like that (unless homelessness count, bleh), but good for you, I envy you. :)
Thanks! It actually happened because I gave up on living in a city. Certainly, there's a lot of people I knew in SF/Bay Area, London, and Dublin who could do what I did overnight (probably even as a side project), but don't, so I don't think funding is the limiting factor for most.
I hope things work out for you. I know it's trite to say online, but if you decide to do it, it's certainly a path you can take. It will involve sacrificing other paths not taken, though - the bill for opportunity cost escapes no-one.
> I am definitely not self-sufficient (especially not socially)! I could maybe take care of my family for one calendar year (one growing season and one winter), but it's a maybe.
For what it’s worth, the fact that you’re denying being self-sufficient, tells me that you’re not a nutjob, no matter what other people say.
> If you've got integration tests that include state, now you've got to either run your tests serially or set up and tear down multiple copies of the state to prevent tests from clobbering each other.
That is a very normal setup.
> Worse, they'll start to become unreliable due to the number of operations being performed. So you'll end up with a test suite that takes potentially multiple hours to run, and may periodically fail just because.
This is called flakiness and is generally a symptom not to be ignored, as it is almost always indicative of bigger issues. It's rare that flakiness is limited to test environments. Instead it's much more likely that whatever your smoke tests are experiencing is a something end-users are also intermittently hitting.
> The feedback loop becomes so slow that it's not helpful during actual coding.
Devs can write their own unit tests when working on their assigned tasks. Smoke tests are designed to run when you're trying to integrate those changes into the existing codebase. At that point, you have the calculus all wrong. Smoke tests slow down devs enough that they don't merge broken code into production. That is a useful release gate unto itself.
If unit tests pass but smoke tests fail, then often (the vast majority of the time in my experience) the issue is that either the dev didn't understand the task or, more often, didn't understand the system they were integrating into.
When your access to food, housing, heating and healthcare for your family are dependent on your income, you may find yourself facing very difficult decisions. Most parents will risk whatever legal ramifications to care for their kids and that's inherent moral and ethical, even if the downstream outcome is not. That is because it is the socioeconomic system rather than the individual who is acting immorally.
> The law is the law, and there is no excuse for breaking it.
This is an infantile view. The law is a framework and there are lots of circumstances where breaking it is not only excusable, it's the only moral action.