Unclear whether this is legit, or if you're being facetious to demonstrate a point. I'm gonna bet on the latter, seeing as this is HN!

You intended to supply a local gang with guns and ammo to earn profit from it, along with the other actions you took. You purposefully set out to profit from their criminal behaviour in full knowledge of what that entailed.

I'm not surprised your wife left you. Good on her.

Here is a circumstance where your point is not valid, where there is no malicious intent:

- Developer A in dept X finds out developer B in dept Y is working on Z. Is uncomfortable with anything to do with Z.

- Dev A raises this with line manager C and gets pushed back.

- Dev A tries to raise this up higher. Gets push back.

- Dev A decides to leave the company because the workplace has now become increasingly hostile.

Dev A tried to do the right thing and raise up the fact that project Z was unethical. By presuming guilt by association, Dev A is treated exactly the same as Dev B.

Consider engineers at Google. Did every Google engineer work on project dragonfly? Did every engineer know about it until it was leaked to the press? Do the project zero team work on ad tracking?

Bringing it back to your example now. If you were an accountant for a printing shop that just happened to be a front, but you never knew about it or suspected it, that's another story. There's no intent to profit from or knowledge of the criminality. Now you're an innocent bystander who was taking advantage of.

If your wife left you in this situation, I'd feel for you.

This is why we presume innocence until guilt is proven. I, for one, would rather some guilty people slip through the net of justice if it helps us to not habitually punish innocent people for crimes they did not commit.

The world is not perfect, nothing is ever black and white.

Facetious? Whatever gave you that idea?

Anyway, we can evaluate the permissibly of moral actions using the principle of double effect. As you suggest, we do not always have the luxury of choosing courses of action without some kind of negative side effect. At the same time, it is not morally permissible to engage in intrinsically immoral acts (sorry, utilitarians/consequentialists) nor is it permissible to intend the evil effect. We may also not use the evil effect as a means of attaining the desired good. Finally, there must be a proportionality between the good and bad effects that justifies the toleration of the bad effect.

I am genuinely confused by your comment. Are you, again, being facetious or are your arguments just bad?

> it is not morally permissible to engage in intrinsically immoral acts (sorry, utilitarians/consequentialists)

How would anyone define an intrinsically immortal act? It seems dishonest to discard well-established schools of thought while ignoring the very premise that makes them relevant.

> We may also not use the evil effect as a means of attaining the desired good.

> Finally, there must be a proportionality between the good and bad effects that justifies the toleration of the bad effect.

These two statements directly contradict each other.

Cool, so there are areas with shades of grey. Claiming that you somehow were not aware of what NSO is doing is just not one of those, at least I won't give you the benefit of the doubt if you're working there as a dev. Likewise, if you work for Hacking team, you know what you are doing.

> Claiming that you somehow were not aware of what NSO is doing is just not one of those

The parent comment of the comment I replied to (try saying that twice as fast backwards) was attempting to point out that we should avoid using guilt by association. i.e. We should focus on innocence for the individual until guilt is proven.

How do you know for absolute certainty that at least one developer (who has ever worked at NSO at any point in time) never said "this is completely illegal and I'm not comfortable with being near it."?

How do you know for absolute certainty that at least one developer (who has ever worked at NSO at any point in time) never said "You know what, I'm really not comfortable doing this work. I thought this was a good gig and I'd be okay with type of work... but I'm really not. It's killing my soul and I can't stand it."?

> at least I won't give you the benefit of the doubt if you're working there as a dev.

Fair enough. You're entitled to that position.

For me: People can make mistakes. People can get in over their head. People can mistakenly believe the lies other people tell them. I'd rather assume someone is innocent until guilt is proven by evidence.

> Likewise, if you work for Hacking team, you know what you are doing.

What even is a "Hacking" team?

Project Zero could be considered a "Hacking" team. Are they bad people for doing what they do? We know about loads of new zero days thanks to them. Extending this, am I part of a hacking team? I do white hat research. Does that mean I'm bad?

Do you mean "malicious adversary" perhaps? Because that is an entirely different concept. Then we are dealing with malicious intent. That's when someone may indeed be guilty (if backed up evidence, of course).

> What even is a "Hacking" team?

I believe @black_puppydog is talking about the company that literally is called "Hacking Team"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacking_Team

> HackingTeam is a Milan-based information technology company that sells offensive intrusion and surveillance capabilities to governments, law enforcement agencies and corporations.

Ah fair enough! Thanks for pointing that out.

As @svane pointed out, "Hacking Team" are exactly one of the companies that are on my personal list of companies where if you work for them, you lose (my) benefit of the doubt.

From your comment I do take the point that maybe not everyone is aware of all of these actors. But if you sign a contract with them, you either know what you're doing and are cool with it, or you didn't care enough to google them. (And I have a very hard time believing the latter.)

The former I find morally wrong, the latter I find negligent (note the "I find", indicating personal choice here) and I do think both should be disqualifying if not explained well.

Edit: even though my personal attitude towards this doesn't matter in the grand (or even small) scheme of things, I'd consider this a situation where I'd invert the burden of proof. Yes, being associated with these companies should put a burden on the person working there if they want a different job. They should have to think about that before they sign. High-skilled people who consider their offers should have a strong incentive to decline.

Right, why do we need due process and laws, when we have people like you who know everything by reading a simple article on the web?

Let's say I am staunchly anti-abortion. I believe any abortion is, unambiguously, murder - the killing of a human being, and, maybe even worse, a child. It's unforgivable- goes against everything I believe in.

I also have a friend named Sammy, who's a doctor. Last night I discovered Sammy got a new job at Planned Parenthood, where a significant part of her time will be spent performing surgical abortions.

How many articles on the web should I read before I'm allowed to stop being friends with Sammy?

If you found out about Sammy's new job from a blog post on the internet, maybe you should give him the benefit of the doubt and ask him about it in person before ending your friendship.

Maybe the right thing to do is to change your opinions on anti-abortion, and come to understand Sammy better?

In that example yes, but are you really telling me that I should change my views on whether it's okay for governments to hack journalists and activists to publicly smear them and arrest their sources?

Nope, but you should judge individuals on their individual actions

It's an interesting position but one with unpleasant implications. Do you think it is morally wrong to work for, say, a terrorist organization planning a chemical weapons attack if all you do is manage procurement for them — you don't make chemical weapons or use them, you just make phone calls and manage a few spreadsheets.

Also, do you have the same feeling for the reverse situation? If instead of being an employee, you're the boss. You're aware that your employees are doing something morally wrong and you do nothing to stop them, but you aren't doing it yourself. Do you have any responsibility? In the ethics of war, there is the concept of command responsibility[0], where leaders are responsible for the actions of people under their command. Do you think that is a bad doctrine because the leaders aren't the ones shooting people? No one dies through their individual actions even if their subordinates commit war crimes.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Command_responsibility

How is choosing to work for a company that sells surveillance software to despotic governments not an "individual action"?

But choosing to work for a company who helps authoritan governments to prosecute journalists and dissidents is an action, and I will judge you for it.

Regardless of how one feels about abortion, or whatever the issue at hand is, "just change your morals so that whatever your friends do is ok" is not a solution at scale.

Or maybe the right thing to do is to try to help Sammy see the evil she is committing. That could involve a Socratic approach that will help uncover the underpinnings of her position. If that fails and Sammy either obstinately refuses to see or for some reason cannot see, then it makes sense to part ways. You gave it a shot, you tried being charitable, but you ultimately cannot force another to accept the truth, nor should you want to. Everyone is morally responsible for his or her own views at the end of the day.

Erm, he made an abstract argument in a satirical way, to counter the abstract argument from parent. I don't see judgment to the concrete case.

I really don't want due process and laws to decide who my friends are for me.

I don't want a mob deciding who should be harassed because of an article.

Ostracizing someone is not harrasment. It's the opposite.

I find your argument to be quite disingenuous considering that the intention of the ostracism it to harm by denying job opportunities and by exclusion from social relations.

Have some decency to call your actions what they are.

If you want to harm somebody in retaliation for doing something you don't approve of, don't call it 'the opposite of harassment'.

I can see your point but perhaps it's a difference of viewpoint. When I am ostracising someone, it's because something bad they did. I think I have the right to choose with who I associate, and nobody has the right to force themselves upon me.

I don't understand why you are redefining a call for ostracism as "deciding who your friends are" and then classify ostracism as "the opposite of harassment".

This pretty much looks like harassment to me:

"the developer community need to start ostracising people working for these companies. Don't hire former employees, don't hang hang out with people who work for these companies and conferences. Don't supply services to these companies (build their website, network...)."

I don't understand what you don't understand. I can't harass someone I don't interact with.

If you are proven to have aided a killer by providing them with weapons for example, that is accessory to murder.

Maybe everyone in that organisation is evil and corrupt, but you cannot just assume that and apply summary judgment without due process.

No, in case of organizations whose raison d'être is doing something morally repugnant for you, it's okay to apply summary judgement.

It is unfortunate. This reality is inherently unequal.

You hiring?