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I'll throw in my two cents because you're literally describing me.
I'm a software developer working for a bank that has, among other things, stolen from the deceased, profited from environmental destruction and charged fees specifically to not provide a service to customers. On top of all of this I consider usury wholly immoral, so I'll never consider any bank any less than evil.
Am I evil or guilty?
To some extent perhaps, I've certainly helped write code that makes what I view as theft more efficient and "accessible." In order to mitigate this, I've moved into a different position that lets me get away with not working more often. I'm able to use a lot of the money I get to do a lot of good for people in my area. I'm no saint, but I'm trying my hardest to make things better.
Not so long ago, I told a friend of mine how awful I felt about what I do, and about how much worse it makes me feel that I've failed to get out from it. He explained to me that since the day I was born, the capitalist state has been force feeding the propaganda down my throat. I was trained to not see the problems with the world and to accept what I was given, I've only broken free from this relatively recently. Blaming myself for being brainwashed and integrated into a system without my consent is victim blaming.
I think you'll find workers generally aren't evil, they just haven't been kicked into a better framework that reveals the way the world really is.
Why do I still work there?
Because I can't fucking leave, I've been trying constantly for years now and I can't get an ethical job. Every single day I want to quit, but doing so means a lot of very bad things happen to me, this is the power that capitalists wield over us.
I've finally given up on finding a new job as a software dev and have decided to pursue an old dream instead, which will involve me going to uni again for a long time, and then I'll spend the rest of my life making a material difference in people's lives every single day. I'm quite fortunate to be able to pursue this, and the fact I can makes me feel it's something of a duty.
There's no ethical job under capitalism.
You're fine. There's a huge difference between a banking software vs the software on an autonomous killing drone
Thank you for this personal contribution. I like the Robin Hood angle of it.
Time theft is the easiest form of protest lmao
Oh, and a side point. When all the awful shit I mentioned at the top came out in a national probe, I publically told the CEO what a piece of shit he and the board were for knowing about it and doing nothing.
You mean you published something on the internet under you real name (which the company probably didn't notice)?
No I sent a message directly to the ceo on our internal version of Facebook (it's called workplace and it's somehow worse than facebook) in a thread about the report.
He replied to me basically ignoring everything I said and pretending like they were innocent and nice people, despite the report going into detail about why they specifically had known about and profited from a lot of illegal activity. Every other employee then proceed to kiss his ass and pretend like he was the greatest man to have ever lived.
Impressive
I've written code that was later used by militaries, terrorists, pedophiles, and others. The American navy uses my code. The IDF uses my code to plan their attacks on Gaza. Some folks use my code to share CP.
The same code is used to help defend folks who have been arrested by corrupt cops in Brazil and also to manage Japan's power grid. It's used by universities to improve the services they provide and by some smaller companies making tinder-like apps to help young folks hook up.
How it's used is completely out of my control. If I didn't work on it, someone else would. If nobody did, all of those people from my examples would just be using something else. The world wouldn't have been a better or worse place. I'm nothing but a small cog in a large machine and if I don't do my part to keep the machine running, all that will happen is that I'll be replaced by another cog and be left to rust.
Now, I'm not trying to advocate for nihilism here. It's more of a "pick your battles" point of view. If I didn't do the tools that are being used for evil, it wouldn't stop evil, so the only thing that quitting would help is my consciousness. It wouldn't improve the world in any way. However, my own life is certainly improved by this work and by living in better conditions, I'm much more capable of doing good things for the world if I so choose. I personally believe that this is much better.
Of course if I could just change jobs to something that doesn't help evil, that would be preferable.
What was you initial intentions when writing the code? Were you paid to do it for a specific project that was obviously used for "bad"?
Nope. Started as a boring b2b product, over time it evolved to be more generic and usable by pretty much anyone. It was about three years after the first release that we found out it was being used by terrorists (I think ISIS?) , then pedophile groups a few months after that. Both were brought to our attention by random news on the web. They weren't our customers, but official militaries for a few countries actually are.
I'm not trying to critique or judge you, but I think it's worth pointing out this is a logical fallacy.
As a general rule, sure. In my specific case it's just the truth. We have dozens of competitors that can do everything our software do - and they are probably used for other evil purposes too, along with many noble or just boring uses as well.
And one thing I might not have been clear about: I've never done anything specifically for those people, it's just that they happen to also use the stuff I worked on.