<story><title>I Worked for a Criminal Organization</title><url>https://openmonstervision.github.io/blog/posts/that-time-i-worked-for-criminals/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>scandox</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a funny one because it&amp;#x27;s potentially one of the most serious crimes. You&amp;#x27;re stealing from everybody, undermining the basis of trust in the entire system in which we live and probably in the long term eroding the basis of democracy. You&amp;#x27;re creating a non-level playing field.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, black and grey market activity are also I think quite an important counter-balance to the possibility of totalitarian government. It creates &amp;quot;gaps&amp;quot; let&amp;#x27;s say for more diverse human and economic outcomes. Which is also potentially good.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s one of those indefensible things that we should tolerate a tiny amount of. Kind of like a vaccine in the body.</text></item><item><author>TheSpiceIsLife</author><text>Tax evasion is a fairly soft crime, it’s shouldn’t be surprising there are people okay with facilitating it.&lt;p&gt;It’s not difficult to find people who believe, rightly or wrongly, the tax system is unfair.</text></item><item><author>skrebbel</author><text>Did it bother you that you were facilitating crimes?</text></item><item><author>PappaPatat</author><text>My first sale of my selfwritten software (about 35 years ago) was for a car driving instructor. The initial sales conversations where difficult. I thought they did not see the advantages of having their planning &amp;amp; bookkeeping in a computer...&lt;p&gt;How wrong I was. It was their &amp;quot;creative bookkeeping&amp;quot; that worried them. When I offered to make that all possible (&amp;#x27;zapping&amp;#x27; as it is called now), they loved it. Based on their referrals I sold it many times over.&lt;p&gt;Come next customer &amp;#x2F; market: bookshops. Guess what the most important selling argument was, besides easy cataloging, inventory, searching, website publishing and reporting? Right: zapping.&lt;p&gt;Thought me an important rule: do not underestimate what your customer is NOT telling you.</text></item><item><author>hackermailman</author><text>Not uncommon in some cities in Canada to find out you&amp;#x27;re working for a criminal outfit if writing point of sale&amp;#x2F;restaurant software where they want you to produce one receipt for the customer and a different one for the restaurant or salon or shady car mechanic that then pockets the unreported tax aka a &amp;#x27;zapper&amp;#x27;. Profitek was busted once, InfoSpec Systems, zappers are in high demand</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>speedplane</author><text>&amp;gt; It&amp;#x27;s a funny one because [Tax Evasion is] potentially one of the most serious crimes. You&amp;#x27;re stealing from everybody, undermining the basis of trust in the entire system in which we live and probably in the long term eroding the basis of democracy. You&amp;#x27;re creating a non-level playing field.&lt;p&gt;This is true, and in addition, it&amp;#x27;s a very unequal crime. To properly evade taxes and get away with it, you need professional help. Most standard W-2 employees can&amp;#x27;t afford it, i.e., for most, the cost to hire professional help evading taxes is larger than the taxes they could save.&lt;p&gt;However, if you&amp;#x27;re very wealthy, then the calculus changes: saving 20% taxes on $50M&amp;#x2F;yr income is a lot more attractive than saving 20% on $200k&amp;#x2F;yr income. Effectively, the wealthier you are, the easier it is to evade taxes, further exacerbating at least the perception (and quite likely the reality) of inequality.</text></comment>
<story><title>I Worked for a Criminal Organization</title><url>https://openmonstervision.github.io/blog/posts/that-time-i-worked-for-criminals/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>scandox</author><text>It&amp;#x27;s a funny one because it&amp;#x27;s potentially one of the most serious crimes. You&amp;#x27;re stealing from everybody, undermining the basis of trust in the entire system in which we live and probably in the long term eroding the basis of democracy. You&amp;#x27;re creating a non-level playing field.&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, black and grey market activity are also I think quite an important counter-balance to the possibility of totalitarian government. It creates &amp;quot;gaps&amp;quot; let&amp;#x27;s say for more diverse human and economic outcomes. Which is also potentially good.&lt;p&gt;I think it&amp;#x27;s one of those indefensible things that we should tolerate a tiny amount of. Kind of like a vaccine in the body.</text></item><item><author>TheSpiceIsLife</author><text>Tax evasion is a fairly soft crime, it’s shouldn’t be surprising there are people okay with facilitating it.&lt;p&gt;It’s not difficult to find people who believe, rightly or wrongly, the tax system is unfair.</text></item><item><author>skrebbel</author><text>Did it bother you that you were facilitating crimes?</text></item><item><author>PappaPatat</author><text>My first sale of my selfwritten software (about 35 years ago) was for a car driving instructor. The initial sales conversations where difficult. I thought they did not see the advantages of having their planning &amp;amp; bookkeeping in a computer...&lt;p&gt;How wrong I was. It was their &amp;quot;creative bookkeeping&amp;quot; that worried them. When I offered to make that all possible (&amp;#x27;zapping&amp;#x27; as it is called now), they loved it. Based on their referrals I sold it many times over.&lt;p&gt;Come next customer &amp;#x2F; market: bookshops. Guess what the most important selling argument was, besides easy cataloging, inventory, searching, website publishing and reporting? Right: zapping.&lt;p&gt;Thought me an important rule: do not underestimate what your customer is NOT telling you.</text></item><item><author>hackermailman</author><text>Not uncommon in some cities in Canada to find out you&amp;#x27;re working for a criminal outfit if writing point of sale&amp;#x2F;restaurant software where they want you to produce one receipt for the customer and a different one for the restaurant or salon or shady car mechanic that then pockets the unreported tax aka a &amp;#x27;zapper&amp;#x27;. Profitek was busted once, InfoSpec Systems, zappers are in high demand</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>c3534l</author><text>Psychologically it&amp;#x27;s hard to see the victim, so people don&amp;#x27;t count it. It&amp;#x27;s a terrible thing about human nature, but it is what it is. The person you&amp;#x27;re replying to will never see themselves on the same level as someone who mugs someone or robs a liquor store, not because the damage they&amp;#x27;ve done isn&amp;#x27;t worse, but because it doesn&amp;#x27;t &lt;i&gt;feel&lt;/i&gt; wrong. We invent all sorts of ways and reasoning that allow us to do awful things without feeling guilt. It&amp;#x27;s just a sad fact about us.</text></comment>