Comment by mandmandam

> Does it merit your overwrought hysterics? "Cruel and unusual"? Absolutely laughable.

We have established that it's unusual. Only the US, NK and Eritrea demand this, and you've wisely not argued that point.

As for cruel: yes, definitively so. It causes needless hardship for many and is decidedly unfair. You agree that it's unnecessarily complex, and you seem to have given up on insisting that citizens abroad are equally represented.

So what's 'hysterical' about calling it cruel and unusual - when it clearly is? What's "laughable" about any of this?

> I don't understand how anyone who writes software for a living can be intimidated by IRS forms.

Congrats - you don't have any issues which would prevent you from having trouble with that kind of form and all the work that goes into it.

Unfortunately, you apparently lack the empathy, or theory of mind, to understand that many if not most people feel quite differently about it.

There are all sorts of reasons that people (even software programmers) can have a different view on this to you: ADD, form anxiety/aversion, math issues, lack of financial knowledge, fear of legal repercussion, record keeping difficulties, life events, language barriers and issues with legal jargon, cognitive disabilities, accessibility issues, growing up poor, empathy for others, etc.

Denying their experience to defend something so obviously exploitative, unjust and unnecessary is a really strange hill to battle on.

What would you personally lose if this situation were corrected? Absolutely nothing. What do you gain from it? Absolutely nothing. You would immediately benefit if these rules were changed. So why are you on this hill bro? What are you trying to do here?

Why is that whenever someone points out an injustice, there's always someone telling them to stop complaining? (And not politely either.) Often they'll say something like "Well if you hate our rules so much, leave!" - except in this case, I already did, and I'm still affected.