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Comment by ClumsyPilot | Hacker News Reader

Being proffeshional does not neccessarily imply neutrality when government policy contradicts science or even basic common sence.

Proffeshional without stones to stand up to authority/management is what gave us Chernobyl and Challanger disasters, Boeing 737, massive famine in China, and, debatably, 2008.

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Agreed. My point was more that there seems to be broad and increasing disagreement on what professionalism entails—both in terms of an obligation to speak up, as you say, and in terms of politely avoiding certain topics in the workplace.

I'd argue that a lot of engineering disasters could/should have been avoided by adhering to standard safety practices and engineering ethics. This is very germane to the work/mission of the business and has little to do with the sorts of external political activism that Coinbase is trying to eschew.

How does policy "contradict" science? Science doesn't tell us what we _should_ do, it tells us what is and what may be the consequences of decisions we make. The policy you say "contradicts science" is just promoting values and ignoring consequences that you disagree with.

I think Sabine Hossenfelder said it best: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGVIJSW0Y3k

This is worth a read. I think it applies to Chernobyl, Challenger (where it was coined) and the 737 Max.

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

All three had known issues (in the case of Chernobyl, for decades), but averting disaster gave people, specifically the engineers, confidence to continue.

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