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A comment on Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions Scandal. Parent comment

Re:Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions... by teddyh on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @01:19PM (#10266412)
Programmers are susceptible to venality just like anybody else.

http://www.commitstrip.com/en/2015/09/22/software-worth-bill...

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Re:Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions... by harryh on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @02:03PM (#10266770)
Of course. My surprise has nothing to do with my opinion of programmers vs other professions. Instead it has to do with the ability of large groups to keep big secrets. That's a pretty hard thing to do.
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Re:Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions... by nitrogen on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @05:52PM (#10268512)
Instead it has to do with the ability of large groups to keep big secrets. That's a pretty hard thing to do.

Honestly, I wonder if this is a myth started by a large group that was keeping a lot of secrets. It seems like it would be pretty easy to keep secrets under wraps by compartmentalizing knowledge, emphasizing and rewarding loyalty, and intimidating or marginalizing potential whistleblowers.

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Re:Volkswagen Chief Martin Winterkorn Resigns Amid Emissions... by PhasmaFelis on Wednesday September 23, 2015 @10:58PM (#10269578)
Part of it is also that announcing this sort of thing online doesn't do much unless it goes viral, and going viral seems to have a lot to do with random luck. There's so many horrible things happening in the world that it's difficult to pay attention to more than a few of them.
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