I’m sorry my reply was so brief when you clearly took time and thought to respond. So now that I’m a bit freer this am, I’d like to offer a more involved response. Firstly, that’s unfortunate about your grandson- I hope evolves his relationship with you where he comes to you for advice when he makes the inevitable mistakes, we all do with women :).
Regarding your response, I resonate with the analogies with other fields such as genetics and nuclear research, however, if those who employ the workers have nefarious intentions or simply capitalistic ideals, where will the checks and balances come from? If coders are simply work for hire, without a set of guidelines that help them consider the broader implications of their work, are we left with the consumer being the only monitor?
In your other examples, there are/were certainly high stakes involved, but nothing nearly as influential on our aggregate value system as software development. Where are we going to level set with values so that we don’t continue to polarize our society over which values are most important, while clever moguls benefit from our distraction?
We don’t teach values/ethics in schools, we don’t see companies with mission/vision statements created by their workforce, and we can’t rely on the average person to be well-informed to understand the inherent dangers in tech dependence. Like all inventions, including morphine which was life changing during the civil war, our indulgent tendencies well surpass moderation.
I appreciate your conversation as I know there are no clear answers to this. I’m simply fascinated with the field of programming and software development, so I’m learning as I listen.