
Rogue One – An Engineering Ethics Story - bem94
http://www.scifipolicy.com/blog/2016/12/18/rogue-one-an-engineering-ethics-story
======
betolink
From the movie "Flash of Genius" about Robert Kearns, the inventor of the
intermittent windshield wiper:

"I can't think of a job or a career where the understanding of ethics is more
important than engineering," Dr. Kearns continues. "Who designed the
artificial aortic heart valve? An engineer did that. Who designed the gas
chambers at Auschwitz? An engineer did that, too. One man was responsible for
helping save tens of thousands of lives. Another man helped kill millions."

"Now, I don't know what any of you are going to end up doing in your lives,"
Dr. Kearns says, "but I can guarantee you that there will come a day when you
have a decision to make. And it won't be as easy as deciding between a heart
valve and a gas chamber."

~~~
vtlynch
Yes, from the movie. From the source I found (linked below), this is a line
Greg Kinnear spoke, that was written by the screen writers. Is there any
evidence the real Robert Kearns said this?

[http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2009/april/60420...](http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2009/april/6042009.html)

Furthermore, how does the first part of the quote make sense. Shouldnt he be
saying that ethics trumps engineering, not the other way around?

~~~
otakucode
He's not saying ethics trumps engineering. He was saying that in other
careers, ethics are not as critically important as they are in engineering.

------
jankotek
I find it bit weird to derive any ethics from Star Wars.

All characters change sides way too often (first rebels, then republic/empire,
then again rebels, then again republic...). Dart Vader commits genecide and
destroys a few planets (including Leia's homeworld), but there is happy family
reunion with Leia and Luck at the end... Jedis are good guys, but they never
bother to send someone for Anakins mother, who is a slave...

I would not be surprised if Death Star construction was initiated during the
Old Republic. The same way Clone Army was created by some Jedi guy.

~~~
xenophonf
There are worse criticisms of the Jedi than them being uncommitted to social
justice---that dusty order of ascetics is an anti-democratic paramilitary that
forcibly conscripts and trains child soldiers to engage in extrajudicial
killings in the name of the Pax Galactica, a meritocracy rooted in the notion
of genetic supermen. They are as vile as the Empire that succeeded them.

~~~
the8472
Most superhero teams seem to operate on similar principles.

And I would argue that this is somewhat justified because societies of muggles
have not developed any mechanisms (organizationally and morally) to deal with
individuals that fall several orders of magnitude outside the normal skillset
of their species.

Put differently: Considering that there would almost nothing mere mortals
could do to stop superman from declaring himself emperor of mankind (several
supervillains try to do just that after all) they are already showing
remarkable self-restraint and ethical behavior simply by not ruling the planet
through force.

~~~
the_af
> _Most superhero teams seem to operate on similar principles._

Agreed. This is why deconstructions of the superhero genre, such as Watchmen
(or even lesser ones, such as Superman: Red Son), are so appealing.

------
dbg31415
To anyone who hasn't seen Rogue One yet... I think it's the best Star Wars
movie since Empire. Worth your time. Amazing fast-paced character development
and arcs (compare Star Wars to Suicide Squad if you really want to be
impressed or see how badly it could have turned out), wonderful little cameos,
rich visuals that show what the prequels could have been, and paramount a
superbly written and acted story.

(Spoilers)

The ambiguous ethics of sending an assassin to kill Galen because The
Rebellion didn't believe how he could leak truthful information (and keep this
mission secret from Jyn in order to get her help locating her father) was
especially well done. The concept of sides, Empire or Rebellion, being unclear
to people until they join one was also woven in nicely -- normal people just
want to go about their lives free from conflict.

The most hotly debated topic between me and my friends though wasn't about
ethics, it was about if Donnie Yen's character was using The Force or not. (Of
course he was, and in prior movies plenty of characters used The Force before
becoming Jedis.)

[https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2016/04/08/rogue-one-a-
star-w...](https://dorksideoftheforce.com/2016/04/08/rogue-one-a-star-wars-
story-who-is-the-staff-wielder/)

Rogue One's story certainly muddies the waters a bit, but the fact Star Wars
is willing to embrace more complexity and a blurring of the lines is great for
the franchise and mature fan base. Someone woke up and realized that the value
of the Star Wars ins't just how many lunch boxes it can sell, they can make a
buck telling compelling stories as well. #NoEwoks #NoGungan

~~~
ant6n
One thing that did seem a bit silly is that every building with a function
needs a whole planet: this is the refinery planet, this is the government
archive planet, etc.

~~~
VLM
The Republic/Empire was space based and something repeated over and over was
that planet-side they were an analogy to the American experience in Vietnam
where the villages pretty much do what they want in between being destroyed,
but there's not really an area of influence on the ground. Meanwhile in space
before the death star very little could stand up to the fleet and after the
death star they had ultimate total stellar control.

Likewise this is why blowing up one, admitted very big, battleship, meant the
rebellion won. They had already won planet-side for all intents and purposes
and now that the empire had little to no space superiority...

Star Wars is very cross genre (come on, knights in shining armor and sword
fighting monsters and wizards?) and part of the middle ages fantasy is an
economic system of mercantilism. So the empire is not going to be amused with
smugglers and they're gonna be very interested in regulation and taxation of
interstellar trade etc.

Another novelty is that HN is culturally extremely urbanite. In the US there
are urbanite areas that are extremely crowded and everyone wants to live there
solely because everyone wants to live there. However outside urbanite areas
the "company town" is a meme that still exists even in post-industrial era.
Most small cities or towns have the one big employer and everyone lives off
them directly or indirectly. For many state capitals and state uni towns the
"big employer" is the government itself. Very few people on HN will know that
outside SV and NYC there are many towns that do virtually nothing but turn
trees into paper or cast plastic into molds or refine oil or whatever their
one big task is. Not unusual for the town to be the grain elevator and
railroad, or its the manufacturing plant, or some kind of resource extraction
site. If you spread humanity thin across the galaxy you'll end up with "the
refinery town" being the only town on an entire planet.

It has certain interesting implications WRT long term environmental issues.
Everything in star wars is smokey and doesn't appear to be overly ISO9001
driven, unlike star trek. Several billion people living like that on a planet
will screw it up pretty quickly, but maybe a thousand living in one town can
maybe live that environmentally sloppy until the star novas in a couple
billion years.

You could live downwind of a cattle stockyard if you want, but if space travel
is cheap enough, you'll end up with nothing but one cattle stock yard on a
planet, because, why live there of all places?

~~~
crooked-v
> Likewise this is why blowing up one, admitted very big, battleship, meant
> the rebellion won. They had already won planet-side for all intents and
> purposes and now that the empire had little to no space superiority...

The Empire still had plenty of space superiority - see, for example, any
number of Star Destroyers scattered around the galaxy.

The Emperor had centralized all mechanisms of government control around him,
though, and a substantial percentage of the (newly disbanded) Galactic Senate
were supporting the Rebels, and so when he died a not-quite-civil-war between
different political factions and different regional heads kicked off, letting
the Rebels defeat or subvert the splintered centers of Imperial power one at a
time.

------
bem94
Maybe this isn't entirely surprising given the audience, but it seems like
most of the comments and discussions here prefer to deal with topics very much
contained _within_ the Starwars universe, rather than looking at the parallels
the article raises between the moral choices faced by Galen and those faced by
we Engineers today. There's a dozen ways to interpret that I guess. I hope it
speaks more to the fandom of Starwars rather than contemporary disregard for
the discussion of ethics in engineering.

~~~
Taek
In Star wars there's a very clear sense of good and evil. The bad guys seem to
be aware that they are bad guys.

Most engineers, most soldiers, and even most terrorists genuinely believe that
they are the good guys. And that makes discussions of ethics a lot more
difficult.

And to the best of my knowledge, we don't really have guidelines the way
doctors do. Is it okay to write code that tracks users even when your app is
closed? Is it okay to build missile guidance systems? Bombs? Ad + tracking
networks that tell companies 90% of your browsing habits without your
permission?

~~~
dmichulke
I believe a good measure is the likelihood of someone else doing it.

If you're forced to shoot someone innocent, you can do it if it's obvious that
someone else (a fellow soldier?!) would be doing it instead and you will
suffer from the consequences.

Also as a dev, if you design a user tracking feature, it's clear someone else
will do it if you don't.

However, for the first atomic bomb there is probably a time window where you
might not be replaceable and hence saying 'no' would have had an actual
effect.

I know it's morally questionable (mind though it doesnt tell you what you
should do, only what's acceptable) but avoids all avoidable stuff and is just
honest enough to acknowledge the situations in which you don't have the power
to affect outcomes.

~~~
abduhl
The argument of "if I don't do it then someone else will" is a self fulfilling
prophecy. You are that someone and it speaks to a weakness of character in
anybody who invokes it.

If everyone said no then someone else wouldn't do it. Consider this: you are
the last in the line of people - everyone before you has said no which is why
they're asking you - except instead of being principled like all the rest you
have caved and said yes. Congratulations, you are the "someone else" and the
downfall of the entire system.

~~~
dmichulke
Your example specifically ignores what I said: I was referring to the
"likelihood of someone else doing it".

If I am the last in a line of people, the likelihood of someone else doing it
is zero, so the above would suggest refusal as well.

And of course, all these decisions are quite easy to make if you ignore the
"being forced to" part.

In most scenarios we see in films or know from history it was: Either you do
it or you will suffer dire consequences (some Nazi prison or death for
example).

I understand that the above is not romantic and doesn't make for heroic films.
But this is about reality, so tell me would you as a soldier refuse to kill
someone even if probability was highly likely that someone else would do it?
At the threat of death?

If so, you probably just got two people killed instead of one. If not, you
cannot really complain about what I wrote above.

------
sebastianconcpt
The most interesting part is: "Galen’s reflection on engineering could have
come straight out of real-life engineering discussions of the 1970s. As the
historian Matthew Wisnioski captures in his book “Engineers for Change”, many
engineers were criticized during the Vietnam War for their role in developing
major weapons systems. In the real world, Galen could have become a
conscientious objector and left the project, but oftentimes engineers can
choose to stay engaged and try to influence the project." <\- influencing as
euphemism of engineering sabotage of course.

~~~
rm445
Perhaps that was the author's intent. But influencing without sabotage is
perhaps relevant to our modern world, especially to the HN crowd - because
weapons systems are likely to become more autonomous.

If you're working on a battle robot - no longer just a science fiction concept
- paying serious attention to the systems that prevent it being an
indiscriminate civilian-slayer could be seen as ethical engineering, compared
to leaving a project in the hands of people who care less about such things.

~~~
bem94
I agree, it is very relevant and especially to the HN crowd (who have always
appeared deaf to this sort of thing from my limited experience here, though I
am happy to be corrected on that point!). We all work on tools which might get
twisted and applied to that which was not their original purpose. It's
important to discuss the implications of that.

------
blackkettle
I just saw this yesterday after being cajoled into it by my wife. I had very
low expectations, and was pleasantly surprised at how misplaced they were. It
was a lot more compelling than the rehashed installment from last year.

~~~
golergka
Really? Being a Star Wars fan who was very impressed by VII, I was shocked to
find out how astonishingly bad Rogue One was. Almost like abysmal Avengers
(once again: long time Marvel fan), it tried to push in so many unsignificant
and inconsequential plot details that the movie got cramped and boring at the
same time. All different McGuffins, buttons and objectives of the final battle
looked like a series of mindless quest objectives for a video game, while
offering nothing in terms of actual character development.

IMO, it was not only the worst Star Wars movie so far, but one of the worst
blockbuster movies ever made.

~~~
mstade
I agreed with this at first. It felt rushed, and cramped. But then I saw it
again (not really by choice, my family had already booked the tickets) and
this time most of it actually made more sense to me. There's still gratuitous
fan service, like bumping in to Dr. Evazan and Ponda Baba or putting blue milk
in the middle of the shot, but in terms of the scenery and story I think it
works. It can be argued that there are too many insignificant characters being
introduced and killed off before you have time to start caring, but given it's
essentially a war movie that kind of makes sense to me. People largely unknown
to one another rally together against a common foe, knowing full well the
chance of success is slim and risk of death is great. As there's plenty of
peril, characters are killed off unceremoniously all over the place – because
it's war and war does that to you. Add to that the Death Star designer with a
conciense, some really evil dudes like Krinnic – commenting "oh, it's
beautiful" without so much as an inkling of remorse upon wiping out an entire
city in an instant – and a great tie-in to ANH, and I think it works really
quite well. I liked getting the backstory to why the Death Star has such a
crucial flaw, and I buy it. It then also makes sense to me that the Death Star
in ROTJ suffers the same fate – it's an iterative design (probably getting rid
of exhaust ports) rather than a fundamental fix.

I'm hoping there's a directors cut that fixes some of the pacing and adds some
more reason to care about Saw Gerrera, but even without I quite enjoyed it –
the second time around. I can definitely see how it's very confusing though,
for someone not very well versed in the Star Wars saga, or if it's their first
movie in the series.

I recommend, if you're a fan of the series, that you see Rogue One again. It
did the trick for me anyway, maybe it will for you too.

One thing that did disappoint me quite a lot is the musical score. It feels
entirely different from the established themes, and not in a good way.

~~~
SN76477
Rushed, cramped, and thin characters are far too common in modern movies. I
think it is a sign of the times that people going to movies want more depth
and 2 hours isn't enough to tell a deep story.

While it has its flaws, the modern mini series (Game of Thrones, Daredevil)
tell much better stories that are more compelling and have depth. (except The
Walking Dead, they have some issues)

I would rather see a 6 hour series on Netflix that tells the Rogue One story
than a single 2 hour flick with characters that I have no interest in.

~~~
mstade
I'd love a Star Wars series rather than these filler movies to be honest. I
enjoyed Rogue One as mentioned above, but agree it'd probably be more suited
as a mini series than a movie. Same for the upcoming Han Solo movie. Just a
different theme for a different season. Given Disney owns the franchise now,
maybe it could happen...

------
otakucode
"I'm just doing my job" is EXACTLY IDENTICAL to "I'm just doing it for money."

I never understand why most people do not realize this and treat one as
sacrosanct and an automatic moral dodge but the other as totally morally
bankrupt even when people aren't being harmed.

------
dba7dba
Engineers talking about engineers that should act ethically is good, but self
limiting, and even self defeating.

For every engineer that builds a terror weapon, every architect that builds a
McMansion, every chef that brings out unhealthy food with not fresh
ingredient, every school district that fails at educating kids adequately,
there is someone with a checkbook that decides who/what gets paid for a goal.
All bad or unethical product is ultimately possible because of someone writing
the checkbook.

If one or even all engineers of an organization disagree and leave due to
ethics, the checkbook writer will just go out and hire next batch of
engineers.

In the fictional story or Star Wars, someone had money (or credits in Star
Wars universe) to put the stormtroopers, Star Destroyers, Tie Fighters, a
planet with beautiful tropical islands with sandy beaches and competent
engineers (but often incompetent security force) to work at building the Death
Star.

Sure the Emperor has the force to get it done, but in our life, someone gets
to dictate what gets built with a checkbook.

So, discussing ethics in engineering is great, but even more important imho
is, who writes the checks.

~~~
zhemao
The whole point of the article was that Galen Urso was cognizant of that fact
and chose to involve himself in the project in order to introduce a fatal
flaw.

The people writing the checks obviously have the most power and
responsibility, but that doesn't mean that engineers don't have to engage in
ethical reasoning.

------
icanhackit
Before reading the article I saw the title and turned to my partner to discuss
the ethics of engineering. I mentioned that the State is largely powerless
without the technical prowess of engineers and that one of the key aspects of
engineering is designing and building the machines that make _machines_.

Gavin the bread-maker might be good enough to build an individual tank through
trial and error, but one tank isn't enough and a collection of hobbyists isn't
enough to arm the State with a worthy arsenal. The hobbyist can build one or a
few things, but it takes an engineer to build many. They are force-
multipliers.

The discussion turned to game theory. I mentioned that perhaps Chartered
Engineers should have something like the hippocratic oath, where they would
collectively refuse to design things from casinos to war-machines - anything
that has the potential to harm society. My partner, who has a background in
history and law, suggested it was futile as the State would simply hold them
to ransom, either for their family's lives or their own, guaranteeing
cooperation from a considerable number.

She then suggested that a way of getting around these issues would be to
design very subtle flaws, weaknesses or exploits that could only be known by
an engineer intimately involved in the project. Funnily enough, that was
exactly what the article focussed on: _After Krennic captures him, Galen later
tells his daughter Jyn that he had a choice: he could have continued
abstaining, and let someone else build the Death Star, or he could dive deep
into the project, become indispensable to it, and find a way to stop it. He
chooses to dive deep, and succeeds in building a subtle flaw in the Death Star
design. Then 15 years later, he sends a messenger to the Rebellion informing
them of the weapon’s existence, power and most importantly, its fatal flaw._

------
negamax
Ethics should be taught on all levels. It's impossible to predict how a good
invention of today would be twisted to serve an ulterior motive tomorrow. Can
we get a universal understanding of right and wrong. Not sure. Isn't AK-47 the
biggest killer today? That doesn't mean that world would be less bloody
without it. More than engineers and inventors, people at large should be less
violent. Can that be made possible through ethics? Religion is a way to do
that but all it becomes eventually is superstition.

------
tcopeland
For many more variations on Star Wars in terms of the modern military, check
out Angry Staff Officer's posts:

[https://angrystaffofficer.com/category/star-
wars/](https://angrystaffofficer.com/category/star-wars/)

One of my favorites is "Skywalker on Trial":

[https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/07/11/skywalker-on-
trial-...](https://angrystaffofficer.com/2016/07/11/skywalker-on-trial-the-
galactic-code-of-military-justice/)

------
ge96
I'm just happy the Calamary dudes were in this movie haha.

~~~
zhemao
And then presumably all die in the end when seemingly the entire rebel fleet
gets trashed. :-( No wonder they resort to attacking the Death Star with tiny
fighters in Episode IV.

~~~
Kihashi
They also say in E IV that the death star is well defended against a full
fleet, but that a small group of fighters should be able to break through more
easily.

~~~
VLM
Its a spoiler but a small group of fighters DID get thru the planetary
defenses and none of the large capital ships got thru, it wasn't entirely
theoretical.

Its a classic surface area to volume ratio thing combined with scalability and
miniaturization limits, in that its always the case that the smallest thing
will get really close to the larger thing while it quickly takes its losses,
and if that's in weapons range the larger thing will get scratched up a bit,
and if the smaller things have a secret killer weapon or strategy, they win.
Thats just how swarm attacks are.

Operations theory and all that. You can do graphs of differential equations of
loss rates in a very abstract sense to show it always turns out like this.

~~~
ge96
It was also nuts in (EP VI I think) when the Super Star Destroyer crashes into
the Death Star and nothing really happens to the Death Star.

------
guelo
Related IRL, you can sign this pledge to refuse to build a Muslim registry:
[http://neveragain.tech/](http://neveragain.tech/)

~~~
dominotw
Wonder who built Obama's muslim registry[1], why were these ethical concerns
not an issue for Obama version of it.

Edit: i don't mean this as a gotcha comment, I am genuinely curious why there
was no hullabaloo over Obama's registry.

[http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/22/politics/obama-nseers-arab-
mus...](http://www.cnn.com/2016/12/22/politics/obama-nseers-arab-muslim-
registry/)

~~~
gcr
A nitpick, but an important one: NSEERS was started as a response to 9/11
several years before Obama took office. It's absolutely not correct to call it
"Obama's muslim registry" or "the Obama version."

The hullabaloo over NSEERS was drowned out by the hullabaloo over all the
other things 9/11 brought forth.

~~~
dominotw
> hullabaloo over NSEERS

Bush or Obama, I don't think a single tech company publically refused to build
this registry. What is the hullabaloo you are referring to. Why is it
different this time? Also puzzled why I am being downvoted, is this a stupid
question to ask?

~~~
LordDragonfang
I think he's referring to a "hullabaloo that would have been" had the American
populace not been otherwise distracted and coerced into thinking it needed
such things.

~~~
dominotw
But these are not regular people, these are corporations. Were corporations
coerced into building these registries by bush/obama govt's.

~~~
gcr
The pledge you originally mentioned (neveragain.tech) was created by and for
individual people, not corporations. It is not a petition.

The difference is important. In a pledge, engineers sit down and define their
own ethical boundaries for themselves. A pledge succeeds when even a single
one of its signatories follows through: by action, by resignation, by speaking
up, or by sabotage. The power remains with the individual to keep their
promise or not. The intent is already there; only the action matters.

A petition is different. Several concerned citizens who are not stakeholders
ask a corporation to do something. A petition fails when the company simply
decides not to do the thing. Here, neither the intent nor the action is
present.

We saw the difference clearly illustrated in Rogue One. Chief scientist
officer Galen Erso did not petition the empire to dismantle the death star. He
simply pledged that no matter the circumstances, he would destroy it by
whichever way he knew how, even though he knew full well this action would
cost him his life.

Back to your point: the difference between the rise of NSEERS and the future
rise of the Trump Muslim registry is that now individuals _within these
corporations_ are beginning to make a concrete, visible, and actionable pledge
to destroy the registry.

Maybe there was less hullabaloo during the origin of NSEERS. I see the current
stance as "learning from previous mistakes." Or perhaps "trying a more
effective approach." There's no reason to place blame on "obama's muslim
registry" (your words not mine), when we're trying better strategies now.

