The Programmers’ Identity Crisis: how do we use our powers for ‘good’?
In December of 2021, an itinerant sci-fi and fantasy gathering called Worldcon came under scrutiny for accepting a sponsorship from an American defense company.1
Critics remarked that the conference had clearly lost its way. Its guests love fiction that treats space and war as backdrops to imagine a better world. The Worldcon organizers, they argued, had forgotten this context, figuring guests would go “Spaaace, ooh, aahhh.” They had taken money from an organization that profits from war: that engages with space as an adversarial strategic theater. Aligning the con with ethically repugnant organizations based on matching wallpaper, they explained, betrayed fans of the genre.
One of the conference’s guests, in response to the public critique, tweeted a counterargument. I’m paraphrasing to protect the person from a pile on; please don’t try to find them. The gist:
“These defense companies are not necessarily evil. They might be a grey area, but they do good things! After all, my partner works at one, and he is good. I used to work at one, and that one helped with the moon landing, which was good.”2
