Tom Coates

Labour is telling you VERY LOUDLY who to vote for if you value human rights. And it's definitely NOT LABOUR.

Eesh

Now, I’ve written far too much; I’m tired and I have a bunch of things to deal with this evening so I’m going to go and get that stuff done.

… and also acknowledge that if you don’t feel comfortable with the ethics of the business you work in or the work they produce, you (1) can persuade people to change (2) can unionize or organize or (3) you can quit and find a different company that *does* have values you can live and work with:

My suggestion is we encourage designers to understand what kind of influence they are likely to have and what they’re not likely to have, encourage them nonetheless to use their influence and Utopianism where they can on occasion to make things a bit better…

More importantly, I feel like if we somehow accept this as an a priori assumption we’re already and immediately conceded a massive amount of ground at a time where, not being weird, various companies are compromising their principles and it’s like actually super dangerous for people like me.

… only to watch it turn to a steaming pile of extractive shit. I’m not a natural optimist. And yet I’m not quite ready at this point to accept the idea that the only thing you should ever consider at work is how you can make the company more money. I think you can and should expect more.

… to be more than cynical about the world we operate in and to have many of my woolly aspirations and belief in the world summarily crushed. I mean I’m a 53 year old gay technologist who survived a pretty difficult and homophobic time and fell into the web on full Utopian mode…

… and that any sense you have of trying to influence the discussion, operate in a way you feel respects your craft and your users (while *obviously* still trying to make money) is somehow flawed or foolish. I’m not going to lie I’ve been in the design and tech industry long enough…

I’ll no doubt be unclear here again, and I may have misrepresented it, but I *do* find it an uncomfortable framing. I’m not trying to be difficult. I’m not being contrary. I think it’s risky to imply that your choices in a company are (1) shut up and do as you’re told or (2) quit …

… but then my first post and most of the comments afterwards have not been statements of absolute clarity and certainty. I’ve just expressed a discomfort with the framing and a concern that as originally presented it borders telling passionate moral people to give up on any matter of principle…

I find this very frustrating. I am very unsure about Erika’s original position as expressed, but she’s talked around it a bit more and I sort of feel like I’m getting the edge of what she’s saying even if my understanding is imperfect. I also feel like I’m communicating imperfectly

I mean, that wasn’t actually what the argument was, and that was one of several examples I provided, all showing that various trades and tradespeople expect and want that the people who come to work in them will bring a sense of purpose, mission and values to their work as well as revenue production

Unfortunately, there’s not a very large market for nuance right now. I’d be much more in demand if there was.

It’s the *intensity* of these expectation poles that are causing the problems. The more someone talks about how world transforming it’s going to be, the more half the population feel queasy and worried about their kids futures.

And I think the potential power and impact of the technology fuels the polarization on this one - because if it’s manifested, the people who are excited think it’ll carry them to a far better world, and the people who are horrified think it’ll carry them to a far worse one.

The antipathy is normally more complicated than the boosterism, I think. It’s a mix of very reasonable fears about their future and prospects and the alienness of the world it creates expressed often as “it’s useless and doesn’t work”.

It’s a version of altruism and values that I find quite repellant, but it’s not purely money that motivates them. You could say the same of most media organizations at this point, certainly anything owned by Rupert Murdoch, along with the ones more aligned with my values - Guardian / BBC.

Absolutely agree. Also wouldn’t work at Twitter. Oh there’s another example for you - I absolutely can’t stand Twitter but the designers there aren’t motivated by making the company money. They’re motivated by pleasing Elon and/or by right-wing politics.

I had a similar experience in an interview with a leading service for the gay community. I also didn’t get the job. You know what that told me? I would not have been able to be motivated by anything other than money if I worked there, so it was a good thing I didn’t work there.

And at various points Facebook has acted more morally than others, both because of internal and external pressure, and even if it didn’t, that would just demonstrate that there are nasty shitty companies out there. Which I would never deny.

And I never said it did. I said in a B-corp the goals of a designer are not exclusively to make money for their company.

I think that’s both good and important for us to keep remembering and arguing for - that companies are made of people and people can choose to make better and more positive decisions that don’t create negative externalities or harm others.

All of which is to say that people inside companies can influence decision making, can be part of decision making, can bring their values into their work and try and move the company in a direction that aligns with their values *as well* as the profit motivE.

And if the company’s goals and values are not purely profit-motivated, then that means their staff’s goals and values are similarly not purely profit-motivated. And those goals, by the way, are not arcane things created on high, but are also based in the decisions of individuals within the company

This is a very good argument for why some companies and their goals are profoundly not aligned with ethics or most people’s personal values or altruism. But the fact that gambling machines are particularly bad suggests that other companies can be considerably better. And incorporate values!

Nor did I. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with making money or doing business. I think the only thing that would *make* it wrong is by telling your staff that the only thing you cared about for them to do was make money at all costs.

Yeah, you’re not wrong. I *absolutely* want it not to be true that you can‘t bring your values, standards, ethics to your work etc.

Just seems to me that makes it clear that many companies are *not* just focused only on profit and revenue - after all your studio isn’t, it allows you express your values too - in which case why is it wrong for people to want to take those values or occasional altruism to work with them?

Here’s the bit I find confusing. Your position is that if you work for a company your goal is to make money for that company and nothing more altruistic than that. But you also say that people can choose which companies to work for or work as a studio and if you do that you can work with your values