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Comment by jahabrewer | Hacker News Reader

Fuck Intuit. Shame on engineers who work there.

I'd rather shame the government that allows Intuit to have their way with taxpayers. Intuit exists primarily because of the convoluted tax filing process in the US afterall..

Intuit lobbies to keep taxes complicated so they can continue to have a business model.

https://www.propublica.org/article/filing-taxes-could-be-fre...

And this is surprising because? It would be surprising if they didn't do that, honestly. The government is at fault here for selling political power and not representing the interests of the people. We could boycott Intuit, I suppose, or use different products, but aside from that, the fault and source of the problem lies squarely with the government.

I truly don't understand this logic. If I found some legal loophole by which I could indiscriminately murder people with no repercussions, no one would excuse it with "well, technically he was allowed to do this so why are we surprised?"

And if I were working with the government to create that loophole… I mean, in this scenario, I'm still murdering people, right? Should my conscience be clean because the government wasn't representing the interests of the people? How is any of this ethically exculpatory?

Haven't you heard? "Incentives made me do it" is an excuse that frees you from all responsibility!

> If I found some legal loophole by which I could indiscriminately murder people with no repercussions

That's a pretty absurd argument. And the government can actually kill people legally, by design.

All I'm saying is that Intuit is a symptom of a larger problem with gov selling political power. Intuit is trash for what they're doing, I agree.

Why is there always someone who injects "surprise" into every controversy? Who's talking about surprise?

We weren't talking about surprise - we were talking about shame. Just because something is legal doesn't mean it doesn't deserve shame. You come off as being oddly defensive towards Intuit.

I think it’s reasonable to feel surprise at learning that this is allowed to happen. Why the surprise-at-surprise style reaction? It makes people feel a bit mocked.

How easy it is to file has little relation with how complicated they are to prepare. That article is exclusively about filing.

Intuit very little to do with making taxes complicated. There are plenty of more powerful interests responsible for that.

Intuit is actively involved in making the process as convoluted as possible.

Right, and they are only successful because a certain government allows them to be disproportionately influential... So my comment is still very much valid.

Shame is not zero-sum; surely there's enough for all parties here.

Why can't we shame both? :)

Really? This is a greedy policy, not an engineering decision. How many engineers have managers they disagree with? I'm sure you've always quit every company in such a situation?

No-one is saying engineers chose the company policy, they're saying that engineers are complicit by working on it. Someone had to but that no-index instruction on the page, and they knew what they were doing.

We're lucky (at least at this moment in time) that engineers are in huge demand. If you're an engineer at an ethically compromised company you could change jobs within a few months, tops. If you haven't then, yes, it's going to affect my opinion of you.

That's ridiculous. Perhaps you can find in a few minutes, but I know plenty of people stuck in jobs they hate but can't find anything better. They are not quitting, and they can't move, because they have people that depend on them or other circumstances.

Intuit is headquartered in Mountain View. No-one needs to move from there in order to secure a job an engineering job. If people depend on you then you can look for another job while keeping your current one - it's something I've done multiple times.

And if you can't find a job in Mountain View then I certainly feel for you, but it may be time to take another look at your resume and work out what's going wrong.

One of my friend's parents works at a company where a large percentage of the engineers / etc. are corrupt (think Boeing with its FAA certifications done by fellow engineers, but with all the engineers agreeing to not look at each other's stuff)- and he decided to stay there and continue to work, despite the corruption- if the company goes down or gets attacked by the Feds, he has a lot of proof to show that he wasn't part of the problem. He's also sort of doing that classical destroy-the-company-from-the-inside thing.

(software) Engineers in todays economy are privileged with the ability to choose their jobs. I think people with power should help fix wrongs inflicted on other people and not silently comply for a share of the pie. I turned down a few jobs I found immoral even though the compensation was substantially higher than the alternatives. Not everyone have this privilege, but when you do, I believe there's a moral obligation to use it.

I turned down contract work from a well-known telecom. The pay was great, unfortunately for them, I have no interest in helping them destroy your privacy. Of course, if I were desperate and had no runway, that would likely change the calculus. UBI would be a godsend in this regard.

> I'm sure you've always quit every company in such a situation?

I have absolutely quit jobs because I had serious issues with the way my employer did business. I would again. It makes sleeping at night a lot easier.

Congratulations, very few people can say the same.

Maybe, maybe not. A not insignificant percentage of my colleagues can say the same.

My point is that everyone can, and does, decide this sort of thing for themselves. Very few people are actually, no matter how much they may think they are, trapped -- particularly at this point in time in our industry. At worst, it's a matter of how much disruption and discomfort they're willing to put up with to adhere to their principles.

When most are sitting in the long tail of wealth/income distributions, then maybe is the likelier answer.

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