COMPUTER
6
T H E K N OW N WO R L D
Published by the IEEE Computer Society 0018-9162/10/$26.00 © 2010 IEEE
Sabotage!
A
t least Sam wasn’t a con-
spiracy theorist. Few
experiences are more
tedious then that over-
whelming monologue
by an individual who has stumbled
across an evil truth that is invisible
to all save him. No, Sam wasn’t a
conspiracy theorist. He believed that
there was an open conflict in the
technical community between the
moneyed classes and the proletariat
of working engineers. According to
him, nanciers, boards of directors,
bankers, insurance executives, and
accountants had no interest in the
production of good technology or
any benets that technology might
bring to ordinary citizens. They were
concerned only with the value of
their investments.
Sabotage was Sam’s favorite word
to describe the state of the technol-
ogy industry. He used the word in
the reverse of its common mean-
ing. When he talked about sabotage,
Sam wasn’t referring to the acts of
common workers undermining the
operation of a production process.
Instead, he was referring to the efforts
of financial leaders to maximize their
profits at the expense of optimal
production, new development, or pro-
gressive innovation. The keepers of
the vested interests were increasing
zation that he called “The Soviet of
Engineers.”
I should have known better than
to use the word “soviet.” I should
have thought more carefully before
I raised a historical example of a
notoriously liberal economist, even
though that economist was the uncle
of a mathematician who greatly aided
the development of the electronic
computer.
My words were not a proper
rebuttal. They were an effort to
end an argument by employing the
appearance of scholarship, and those
words were repaid in kind. Sam
showed himself distrustful of the
word “soviet” and equally uncertain
about the idea of engineers banding
together. For the rest of the day, he
railed about the ineffectiveness of all
professional computer organizations
including IFIPS, the ACM, CRA, and,
of course, the IEEE Computer Society.
As have so many others in similar
situations, I concluded that I could be
more productive doing other work
and moved to new tasks and new
partners. However, I was in a posi-
tion where I could do that easily. I
had no boss, no assigned projects,
no established goals. I didn’t have
to worry about the divided loyalties
of the engineering profession, as so
many engineers must. I didn’t need
The idea that an organized team of computer scientists
might have created a major worm comes at an uneasy time
for engineers.
David Alan Grier, George Washington University
the price of goods, clinging to inef-
ficient technologies, and thwarting
ideas that were good for the general
public, such as open source. This
last subject was often the topic that
would get Sam talking about indus-
trial sabotage.
When faced with speeches such as
Sam’s diatribes on sabotage, listen-
ers have three strategies: they can
become quiet and ride out the storm;
they can argue in an effort to change
the speaker’s opinions; or they can
attempt to break contact and find a
new collaborator.
In dealing with Sam, the first
strategy quickly revealed itself to be
a failure. Without any resisting force,
he could talk about the sabotage of
open source software as long as there
were hours in the day.
The second strategy was equally
ineffectual in my hands. At one
point, I noted that Sam’s ideas about
sabotage were similar to those of the
economist Oswald Veblen, who wrote
about engineers and business in the
years that followed World War I.
For a moment, Sam seemed inter-
ested in this connection. “What did he
recommend?” he asked.
“Well,” I said, “he argued that engi-
neers should form an organization to
take the control of production away
from financial interests, an organi-
©2010 IEEE. Reprinted, with permission, from David Alan Grier, Sabatoge!, Nov. 2010. This material is posted here with permission of IEEE. Such permission of the
IEEE does not in any way imply IEEE endorsement of CSPRI's research or message. Internal or personal use of this material is permitted. However, permission to
reprint/republish this material for advertising or promotional purposes or for creating new collective works for resale or redistribution must be obtained from the IEEE
by writing to pubs-permissions@ieee.org. By choosing to view this document, you agree to all provisions of the copyright laws protecting it.
