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Comment by iainmerrick | Hacker News Reader

This is a nice little interview, but the title is very misleading! The word "humanities" only appears once outside the title and the answer doesn't really address the title's claim.

I think it's an interesting topic, though. Do tech companies need more humanities grads? I'm skeptical because plenty of other industries have caused their own social problems, and the humanities haven't saved them. Look at advertising, which was originally built by artists rather than hackers.

It may well be true that big tech companies need to be more socially aware and environmentally conscious, but that doesn't mean "the humanities" is necessarily the answer.

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I don't believe she's necessarily calling for the hiring of humanities grads.

What would help, as a start, is an appreciation for the values (and value) of the humanities.

On HN specifically, you frequently see something akin to Schadenfreude when referring to students of the liberal arts serving fries to tech grads. That is to some degree just factually wrong, considering many liberal arts undergrads go on to rather lucrative careers in law, or powerful careers in politics.

But it is also short-sighted, because history has always been a two-step process, with technology enabling us to do new things, and other disciplines enabling us to use these capabilities for something resembling the "common good".

I always like this thought experiment: Would you rather live in a world with the middle age's social/political/law system and today's technology–or the other way around?

This doesn't mean that social and political progress are the exclusive domain of those who studied greek mythology. In fact, this article explicitly argues that it shouldn't be: Hackers should engage with that community.

But what it does take is, sometimes, a bit of humility. Too often, I feel the tech community is looking at technological solutions to social and political problems. See cryptocurrencies, or the encryption debate as examples where you can feel cynicism, bordering on disdain, for the political process.

The problem with that is, first, that it's wrong: a lot of power rests in politics, and China is a living example that the internet community is currently unable to win a direct confrontation with the power of the state. It is also wrong in that it portraits all governments as equally bad, all laws as subject to changed or broken when expedient, when clearly there are differences in the rule of law between countries, and there are differences in the willingness of politicians to act with integrity.

Secondly, using technology to create facts is somewhat undemocratic in itself. The Federal Reserve may be committing all sorts of errors. But it is hard to deny that derives legitimacy through a transparent, tested, process much more democratic than bitcoin. It is also an illusion to suggest that bitcoin is free of ideology, only because that ideology takes the form of an algorithm decided in the past, ticking away with almost no method to influence it.

I agree that it's an error to describe bitcoin as free of ideology, but regarding the fact that it's an algorithm decided in the past and hard to change, wouldn't that describe Constitutions too?

That is, indeed, an apt comparison. Constitutions are a strange beast, because they are not subject to majority rule, but require supermajorities far beyond 50%.

That appears undemocratic. Part of the solution to this tension is to point out that democracy is more than just majority rule, nicely enshrined in the saying "Democracy isn't two wolves and a sheep voting on what's for dinner".

Another part is the custom that constitutions are mostly concerned with the process of democracy, not the contents. It's somewhat tenuous in light of the the US constitution's amendments, some of which seem to deal with subjects that don't directly relate to the political process. But I think a case can be made that, for example, religion is constitutionally protected because it plays an important role in society's deliberations.

I once saw the late Justice Scalia, for whom I usually have nothing but disdain, at a talk, and he had a relevant point: Too often, people call for a constitutional amendment to enshrine their ideology, removing it from being a subject of the usual political process. That is, I believe, valid for attempts to elevate animal rights, or restrictions on abortions, to the constitution, among other things.

I think this discussion mostly serves to show that politics is almost never about easy decisions. Because easy decisions are made silently, never to appear in the news and the subject of partisan strive. But the tech community has a tendency to believe in oh-but-thats-so-obvious, and the result of that believe is, for example, the idea that "smart contracts" could replace the ambiguity and complexity of law in capturing the myriad circumstances of life that may make an appearance in a contract, or a dispute.

> Too often, I feel the tech community is looking at technological solutions to social and political problems. See cryptocurrencies, or the encryption debate as examples where you can feel cynicism, bordering on disdain, for the political process.

You say that as though technology isn't part of the political process.

If the last few years have taught us anything it's that the general population is not a fan of the existing banking laws. But that hasn't resulted in reform because the banks and law enforcement agencies have undue disproportionate political power and prevent that reform.

Technologies that can disrupt the balance of power that keeps the broken status quo aren't apolitical, but that doesn't make them dirty. They're a tool that can be used for good or for ill. It's not as if the other side isn't using their own tools. AES didn't exist in 1950 but neither did ISMI catchers, room 641A, the Utah Data Center, always-on surveillance devices in everyone's pocket, etc.

And resisting government overreach with maths is a whole lot cleaner than doing it with bullets and IEDs, which are also part of politics.

I guess what I'm reacting to is not specifically this interview, but the notion I've seen in a few places that "big tech companies need the humanities". For example, John Naughton in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/nov/19/how-te...

Ullman's book probably doesn't oversimplify like that, but the title of the article alludes to it.

What I would like to know is, what are some good examples of industries that are doing the right thing, that could be used to guide the way forward for tech companies?

I'm very skeptical that there are any industries that have successfully self-policed in this way. But there are many examples of industries that have exploited shared resources and human weaknesses for a quick profit, and inflicted lasting harm in the process: oil, tobacco, intensive farming, fashion, cars, guns, advertising. (And just like social media, most of those have their good points too!)

Tech and social media in particular is an outlier because it's so successful, but even so it's not totally unique -- the economic and social media effect of oil is massive too.

One possible positive example that occurs to me is nuclear weapons. They could have proliferated massively, but so far they haven't quite. Those weapons are developed by states rather than corporations, though.

I really object to the stereotype of socially-awkward programmers being to blame for everything, because we don't understand how real squishy humans work. The problems we face are the same ones that have faced every highly successful and transformative industry. They're at the root of business and capitalism.

This is a contentious opinion, but I believe journalism, at least in part, may be a good example.

The publications generally regarded as the top, auch as The Economist, the New York Times, and, until this year, The Wall Street Journal: they are not catering to the lowest instincts. When they have made mistakes (somebody will inevitably bring up Judith Miller), they have self-corrected, with new policies, and by firing people.

I also wouldn’t consider the wish for „more humanities in tech“ as an attack on you personally, or any single person. In fact, Google, Apple, and many smaller companies have an excellent track record on many issues. Their leadership actually has an appreciation for non-Technology issues far better than most companies’. Yet the example of Apple engineers preparing to go to jail to protect their customers stands out, because others (Yahoo, AT&T) so eagerly cooperated to intrude on customers’ privacy.

You're right, journalism is a good positive example.

I do worry, though, that it's being degraded by the widespread removal of the firewall between the news side and the advertising side of the business.

Actually modern advertising ( post WW2 ) was built by psychologists - the artists just dressed up the intentions. Edward Bernays pivoted from being a propagandist to advertising and virtually created the foundation for Madison Avenue as we understand it. Until social media and it's dopamine manipulation strategies, advertising was focused on the manipulation of the viewer.

Huh, interesting! I was under the impression that the typical ad executive of the 50s and 60s would have studied philosophy or classics or something like that -- wannabe writers and artists who got tempted into high-paying jobs on Madison Avenue, similar to today's wannabe mathematicians and physicists who end up working at tech companies and hedge funds. But maybe that's an incorrect stereotype.

I think big tech companies are perfectly aware of how people react to their actions.

In fact, do they not study reactions in order to maximize the amount of time spent on their platforms?

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