I got a bunch more motion sensors and I've been putting them around the house so I can program Home Assistant to do stuff like turn off lights in rooms that aren't being used, turn on lights when we're going downstairs with hands full of laundry, obviously just flipping a switch is easy but in some rooms the switch is on the opposite side of the wall and if I put a button on the entry-side then I don't trip over the cat, telling the water heater to get hot before we shower, having a $10 smart plug tell me when my 80's washing machine has finished, having a button to make the lights go cosy, y'know just nice helpful stuff that I do because I like making the house better for my spouse and kid and as I was putting up all these motion sensors I was thinking,

man,

there's NOTHING in this program to detect when it's being used for evil

And like there really should be? Like someone could legit fucking torment their family with this, this could be used as a tool of manipulation and control and fostering the abusive sort of dependence

And then I think of how me and spouse are moving away from google and onto like self-hosted stuff, nextcloud and searxng and xmpp and shit like that, and I can't help but think, *know* really, that right now there's someone controlling their intimate partner with those same technologies, like something that's supposed to be liberating you from corporate-style General Abuse is being leveraged towards a form of very focused abuse against you specifically by someone on whom you depend

I don't think enough software devs spend enough time thinking about how their projects can be used to hurt people

Has anyone smarter than me written any long posts thinking about this and what we can do about it

@ifixcoinops
Not specifically about this but about tech and power. What you are doing is using your skills to create an environment for your family that you control. Implementinf a system of material power over them.
I know they still don't teach ethics to engineers but just don't implemement syatems that give you power over ppls lives. No matter if you intend to misuse it.
@ranja I mean this system in my house specifically, there aren't any non-admin accounts and my spouse works in tech so there's less of a power imbalance than there would be in honestly probably the majority of home assistant setups. Stuff like having physical buttons on the wall to do most things goes a long way too, the whole point of this is that it's supposed to be liberatory for all involved, but looking at like the home assistant forums it's pretty obvious that this is Not how the majority of systems are set up, there's a lot of white middle-aged tech blokes making posts about Wife Appreciation Factor and when you install this thing there isn't so much as a popup saying "Yo make sure everyone in the house is on board with this"
@ifixcoinops
There should also be no option to log things without putting it into some maintanance mode that makes your lights flicker every hour or so.
@ranja I think you and I are thinking about different problems, but that's not a bad idea regardless