The answer to problems in sociotechnical systems is not always "more software", "better software" or "open source software".

[elrohir@mastodon.gal]

@tante Or even if a software is made, an understanding of socioeconomic patterns that make users behave in certain ways is necessary. For example, the point of FOSS is so that the application vendor cannot force me to not use the app in certain ways or buy repairs from third parties. But if for security reasons an authentication signature by the vendor is demanded, what use is it to make the app open source? they can still control how I use or not use their app by holding credentials hostage.

[aeveltstra@mastodon.social]

@tante Yes! Sometimes people just need to talk to each other.

Some of my clients separated their company into individually run divisions. The employees in one don't talk to the other. Bu they do talk to IT and demand the COO to fix their human lack of communication with more tech.

Like, no!

Just talk to each other already. You work for the same company!

[zygos@mastodon.social]

@aeveltstra @tante

Oh the number of times we were asked to force healthcare workers to do something via the EHR that they never had to do before the EHR ....

So many requests to shift work from administrative functions on to providers.

I'm sure it's still going on today.

[raymaccarthy@mastodon.ie]

@tante
Regulation of large corporations and obscenely rich Capitalist individuals. Applying of existing laws they break.
Both mostly think laws only apply to customers or average people.

[jeffc1956@mastodon.social]

@tante
This may be also because most software designers fail to put their ethics first...

Artistic Intent

Are you curious about what all these " ethos " posts are about, and what they have to do with designing a software system? Well like most ...

(artinbsd.blogspot.com)

#software

[wesgeorge@mstdn.social]

@tante There is a Laurie Anderson installation at the Hirschorn modern art museum in DC with this astute observation.

[sesav@mastodon.social]

@tante Since December 2025, Spotify's premier engineers have not written code by hand, as reported by TechCrunch. We have gotten what we have always dreamed of.

[dnkboston@apobangpo.space]

@tante This is what I've been saying.

[gokushrm@mastodon.social]

@tante human nature... He want more & more

[moses_izumi@fe.disroot.org]

@tante
Me using plaintext editors and considering a dedicated FreeDOS laptop.

[patches@plush.city]

@wesgeorge @tante medtech can save lives, though. like, maybe not the creepy AI notetakers that every doc seems to be using out here now, but i would be dead or a completely different person if not for modern neuroscience and imaging technology

[curiousicae@tech.lgbt]

@tante
Like voting computers:
Local municipality went for these some years ago because they’re, like, shiny and “digital” and supposidly save time.

CCC (hacker’s association, ie: who everyone expected to be maximally excited about this) sued against these and had them found unconsitutional!

Why? Well, the consitution requires the ballot process to be understande and comprehensible by lay persons so that there never can be a situation where a claims of the vote having been rigged are impossible to verify. (We’re talking about hard power interests here after all.)

A vote conducted using a computer is not comprehensible by lay persons. Period.

Nerds would often be like: “But, but we could use blinded tokens, we could use zero-knoweldge proofs. It be completely verifiable!”
Yes, to like 2 people on Earth maybe!

To proof it to everyone else we’d need a papertrail and verify that. An activity generally refered to as “counting the votes”...
Might as well stick to that then.

#tech #techethics

[nickynah@rebel.ar]

@tante oh you mean we don’t need 400 calendar applications that work exactly the same and use the same standard but are front different companies and don’t interact well with each other? I’m appalled by your comment

[dasgrueneblatt@wien.rocks]

@tante yes

[shnepo@theforkiverse.com]

@tante yeah feature creep is a big problem. Mostly caused because of capitalism IMO.

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@tante @SnoopJ “this SaaS could have been an email”

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@c0dec0dec0de @tante look, we each know what we did, and maybe we should just admit it

[snoopj@hachyderm.io]

@glyph @tante "this DHCP server could have been RFC 2322"

[glyph@mastodon.social]

@SnoopJ @tante (me opening the bag labeled "RFC 2322")

I don't know what I expected

[robertootarola@mastodon.social]

@tante you can't go wrong with coffee, pen and paper.