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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

Looks like Joe lived and worked in an environment which valued things like "where do you send your kid to school", hence why the PE guy felt the need to "look it up" (if said PE guy had not felt the same about "good" schools as joe did then he wouldn't have felt the need to search). I don't blame this on Joe, I blame it on the system.

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If Joe lied, that’s on him. Credentialism is a topic worth to explore and I would argue that it’s beside the point but… yikes, who the hell actually verifies if somebody’s son attended some school. I mean if we are talking about a test of character, I believe that Joe should be glad to be out of that environment.

Depends, lying is a "strange" move, but society doesn't reward honesty nor silence very much. Appearances on the other hand... I'm a naive truthist and almost ended up jobless. Meanwhile lazy but assertive people get hired on the spot and spend half their day on reddit. Society can distort you to that point.

Fascinating how nowadays people are excusing clearly unethical (and sometimes criminal) behavior and instead decide to blame it on something nebulous such as the "system".

While it might be true that Joe felt pressure to lie due to the environment he was operating in, that doesn't absolve him from lying. Just like being really horny doesn't absolve someone from raping.

Without excusing Joe specifically, lying is not seen by nearly everyone as intrinsically wrong in the same way rape is. Lying in response to an unjust question can be seen as just, e.g. answering "What's the code to the door? Tell me or I'll shoot" with a duress code, or more controversially answering "Where did you go to school?" in such a way that you appear to be wealthier during a job interview where candidates from poorer backgrounds are discriminated against.

I don't think this absolves Joe because I don't think anyone would have discriminated against him on the basis of where his kids went to school, or that he could have reasonably expected them to.

I was with you until the last sentence

There needs to be a Godwin's law for sex crime metaphors

Is stealing bread to feed your sisters starving child unethical?

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