Re:Tell HN: I Need Project Ideas
by latexr on Thursday March 17, 2022 @07:36AM
(#30709956)
> I think of any tech product as a tool similar to a knife.
Tools are designed for their use-case. A butter knife won’t be useful for stabbing, while a hunting knife will excel at it. An airliner delivers passengers, a bomber delivers destruction. Both are planes, both are tools, and both have wildly different applications.
If you knowingly keep developing a tech product which actively harms people at a societal and individual level, you don’t get to hide behind “it’s just a tool, it can be used for good or bad”. It will be used for whatever you designed it, and Facebook is designed to empower its creator with utter disregard for anyone else. You don’t use Facebook, it uses you.
Tools are designed for their use-case. A butter knife won’t be useful for stabbing, while a hunting knife will excel at it. An airliner delivers passengers, a bomber delivers destruction. Both are planes, both are tools, and both have wildly different applications.
If you knowingly keep developing a tech product which actively harms people at a societal and individual level, you don’t get to hide behind “it’s just a tool, it can be used for good or bad”. It will be used for whatever you designed it, and Facebook is designed to empower its creator with utter disregard for anyone else. You don’t use Facebook, it uses you.