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Comment by mason240 | Hacker News Reader

>Firms that set out to recruit autistic workers, such as Walgreen’s, a big pharmacy chain, find them just as productive as their peers.

I did not know that Walgreen’s does that.

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Sadly, they do it for their own benefit. It ticks boxes they need to tick for Federal law and tax reasons.

Do not think they do this out of the kindness of their heart.

So the legislation achieved the desired effect?

Yes, but the legislators did it for their own personal benefit, not out of the kindness of their own hearts.

It's self-serving narcissism the whole way down.

Is it not a wonderful thing when incentives are properly aligned?

> narcissism

Is there actual narcissism here rather than mundane following of incentives?

So fucking what? Why does anyone care?

The means justify the ends in this case, I think.

> Sadly, they do it for their own benefit.

Around here a consulting company has specialised in this (you don't get an interview unless you have an autism spectrum diagnosis) and last I heard it wasn't at all sad:

Some autistic people with correct skills were paid good money to do things they really liked well like iron out rare bugs in financial services etc.

So not only to fill some quota and not taken advantage of. Oh, and said company made good money IIRC.

The context was Walgreens. Some companies are smart enough to hire high functioning autists to hammer down hard to nail bugs. Most aren't.

The only part I tried to nuance was that "for their own benefit" doesn't always mean pure evil.

I have a great job with a large information services company troubleshooting large expensive complicated software and large expensive complicated data.

It's a laugh. Innit.

Which matters more: that they do something right, or that they do it for the right reasons?

Or: Which matters more to you, that they help people, or that their hearts are pure?

Let me introduce you to the market, where self interested parties exchange goods and services for mutual benefit, increasing society's wealth.

Sounds like federal law is working!

I donate a substantial portion of my salary to charity. My primary reason for doing so is because I derive utility from the feeling of contributing to the collective good of humanity.

Does that make my good acts and charitable contributions somehow less valuable?

Moreover, the entire point of such tax incentives is to offset the additional difficulty and cost of employing challenging employees.

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