Hacker News Reader

Comment by Tarrosion | Hacker News Reader

> In a country with a terrible maternity and paternity leave policy, it's morally right to do whatever possible ...

This seems like quite a slippery slope. Who gets to decide what counts as an acceptable maternity/paternity leave policy? And surely you don't mean it's morally right to do literally whatever possible. Suppose I show up at my boss' house at night with a gun and tell her than unless she keeps paying me full wages as I spend all my time with my family, I'll shoot her. Is that okay? (I hope not!)

View on HN

Stretching it a little bit here are you, now?

The guy figured out how to automate his job when no one else before him did it. Let the small guy get the fruit once in awhile. What do you think they will do if he tells them? As he said, they will just take the software and get rid of him. They won't even ask themselves if it is morally right or wrong. I say keep the good work and spend the time with your son. I wish I could automate my job that way and scratch my balls the whole day, even at the office...

I wasn't trying to make any comment about the job-automation situation; for what it's worth, I find arguments both ways to be very persuasive.

Rather, I was commenting that the moral system in the grandparent comment of essentially "decide what values are important to you, and if your country's laws don't align well enough, feel free to break those laws" is quite an eyebrow-raiser.

Do you disagree?

> "decide what values are important to you, and if your country's laws don't align well enough, feel free to break those laws" is quite an eyebrow-raiser. Do you disagree?

This is itself a moral judgement and the answer has been debated since the invention of law :) Some might argue that obeying an unjust law is morally wrong (i.e. civil disobedience).

I don't see a problem with that, as long as you understand that you will almost certainly need to face state imposed consequences when you break the laws.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com