No, the "sin" is in Valley programmers broad refusal to acknowledge the social impacts of their work, their refusal to believe that technology, which is inseparable from the context it is used in, could possibly have any negative impact on that context, and the people who use it.
Even in 2017 we still have engineers crowing about how technology is value neutral, it's a-political, and how any attempt to claim otherwise is putting artificial restraint on something they see as pure and detached from society.
It's an entirely bullshit mode of thinking which needs to be challenged in the here-and-now if we're to have any hope of a bright future, rather than the immiserated neo-feudal hellscape we're currently heading towards.
But one main alternative to that value neutral statement and one major outcome of truly caring about the context of technology is literally Ludditism- like, if we figure out a way to make unlimited free energy with zero waste, do we REALLY want to restrict that because it'll bankrupt the coal industry? Does it become the inventor's responsibility to care for coal miners displaced by her/his new tech?
I am in the end for your argument - that is, I think you are generally correct that we need to consider the context, but I am at a loss as to how to regular that sentiment, because the 'care about context' sentiment gets to its absurd extremes REALLY FREAKISHLY FAST.
Example: I can say with some ease that Uber has gone rogue and is bad in it's context, but I am not joking or hyperbolizing about the previous suggestion about coal and free energy. What about radical lifespan increase? Rich people will start living 5x as long as poor people, making them functionally different SPECIES from us, especially in the context of humanity currently (they'd be like elves to our low men). Our alternates are reasonably scarce - we can push for regulation, but seeing as the regulators are captured by private interests at present, THAT has AT LEAST as much possibility to run amok and extend beyond those of us who push to begin it as our science/technology does!
So neo-feudal hellscape or no, I assert right back at you: technology and science are value neutral, or even automatically value positive by virtue of increasing knowledge, and this argument is detached from "we need to regulate the stupid crap Uber/whoever else is up to," that you're making. Fighting the argument you want to fight here merely leads into a rat's nest of impossible options. I say stand above that and regulate behavior before regulating technology, and where that is impossible, adapt to new reality and/or revolt, because getting lost in squirrel fantasy rat's nest of regulatory oversight on what technology is even allowed to HAPPEN isn't going to prevent that hellscape - it'll speed our descent into it.
That sentiment is all well and good for technologies like self-driving cars and solar energy and the like, but a non-trivial percentage of extremely intelligent and talented Valley programmers are spending their time and effort figuring out how to most efficiently gather information on folks and how to most efficiently advertise and convince them how to buy shit they don't need. There's a lot of those types here who will bury their heads in the sand and suggest that it's not really that bad that Facebook and Google and the like are siphoning everyone's information and that they don't work on that project anyway so they aren't at fault in any way, shape, or form anyway. Those types are the ones that need to wake up and realize they are doing more harm than good.
But your sentiment doesn't occur anywhere in the first 15 paragraphs of the article. In effect, your two sentences make a better argument than 15+ paragraphs from the article.
I'm criticizing the ARTICLE, not necessarily the viewpoint. The article is poorly written in my opinion.
“The release of atomic power has changed everything except our way of thinking ... the solution to this problem lies in the heart of mankind. If only I had known, I should have become a watchmaker.”
And is this different to news papers how - when the phone hacking scandal broke in the Uk it was obvious that even a liberal news paper like the gruniad had a substantial number of journalists who thought the end justifies the means, or maybe they wanted to keep the possibility of working for NI open.
Re neo feudal helscape isn't that the brexit the rich news paper owners want ?
Even in 2017 we still have engineers crowing about how technology is value neutral, it's a-political, and how any attempt to claim otherwise is putting artificial restraint on something they see as pure and detached from society.
It's an entirely bullshit mode of thinking which needs to be challenged in the here-and-now if we're to have any hope of a bright future, rather than the immiserated neo-feudal hellscape we're currently heading towards.