3 ms·

I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it

by yuhong 10y ago

btilly 10y ago
An estimated 60 people have died because of these excess emissions. What penalty would you consider appropriate for someone breaking the law, resulting in 60 deaths? Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused?
- JumpCrisscross 10y ago
  > Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused? Yes, always. We don't jail people for doing immoral things. We jail them for doing illegal things. This is a big part of rule of law.
- yuhong 10y ago
  60 people was just an estimate from statistics, and NOx emissions are not a new problem either.
  - galdosdi 10y ago
    That it's an estimate doesn't change the basic moral argument unless you're suggesting it's quite likely the estimate could be so off that the actual amount is 0. If it's even 1, and the outcome could reasonably have been predicted, the argument holds.
  - btilly 10y ago
    NOx emissions are not a new problem, and our ability to estimate its effects are pretty good. The exact number is an estimate, but the real number is very unlikely to be off by more than a factor of 2. If you randomly shoot 30 people, what is the appropriate penalty? What if you were shooting blindfolded and couldn't see when or who you killed? What if you were being paid money to take shots? That is an exact analogy to what Volkswagon did when it sold cars that exceeded regulatory limits.
    - yuhong 10y ago
      I mean in the sense that the emissions before the EPA was created was far worse.
      - chc 10y ago
        Isn't this like saying that shooting deaths were a much bigger problem in the Old West, so it's not fair to jail someone just for shooting a few people? The crucial fact is that you're breaking the law and killing people in the process, not that you would have killed even more people if the law hadn't been there.
      - Mtinie 10y ago
        Ok, so in your example 120 people were killed by emissions vs. the ~60 that died today. That's an improvement for everyone except for the people who still died. Arguing that killing less people than could have in the past doesn't feel like it's the best way to frame a position, unless the new number is zero.
      - x0x0 10y ago
        And murders were worse 10 years ago too. How on earth is that related to giving someone a pass for a murder now?
        Udik 10y ago
        The law does give a pass for murder now. Just half the number it gave until a few years ago. So it's really hard to argue that a company in this situation is morally responsible for the murder of some number of people. As that would be equivalent to saying that the government has decided how many people you can murder, perfectly legally, every year. So unless you accept this, it's not murder.
      - btilly 10y ago
        Yes. See https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning... for estimates of things like how many hundreds of thousands of deaths per year worse we used to be. But that is irrelevant to the question of what the consequences of Volkswagen's actions were. That's like justifying calling a black person a nigger on the basis of that being better than the lynchings that they used to have to put up with.
- oh_sigh 10y ago
  Are you saying that 60 people died because of excess FCA NoX emissions?
  - btilly 10y ago
    No. That is the estimate of the number who died from the Volkswagon emissions.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
LeifCarrotson 10y ago
It's less about emitting NOx, or an individual Chrysler owner being deceived about how much emissions their car produces. It's not even about a public policy requirement that aims to limit NOx emission, reducing smog and acid rain, which are bad. In the end, it's about FCA lying to the government: claiming to meet the requirement while secretly working around it.
ocschwar 10y ago
If they wrote software that does something wrong, then there is so much premeditation in this that jail time is a must.
djrogers 10y ago
> I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it The violation doesn't actually state the increased NOx emissions were above any limits, just that the software responsible for the increase wasn't disclosed.

I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it

by yuhong 10y ago

I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it

An estimated 60 people have died because of these excess emissions. What penalty would you consider appropriate for someone breaking the law, resulting in 60 deaths? Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused?

JumpCrisscross 10y ago
> Should it matter what law was broken, or how those deaths were caused? Yes, always. We don't jail people for doing immoral things. We jail them for doing illegal things. This is a big part of rule of law.
yuhong 10y ago
60 people was just an estimate from statistics, and NOx emissions are not a new problem either.
- galdosdi 10y ago
  That it's an estimate doesn't change the basic moral argument unless you're suggesting it's quite likely the estimate could be so off that the actual amount is 0. If it's even 1, and the outcome could reasonably have been predicted, the argument holds.
- btilly 10y ago
  NOx emissions are not a new problem, and our ability to estimate its effects are pretty good. The exact number is an estimate, but the real number is very unlikely to be off by more than a factor of 2. If you randomly shoot 30 people, what is the appropriate penalty? What if you were shooting blindfolded and couldn't see when or who you killed? What if you were being paid money to take shots? That is an exact analogy to what Volkswagon did when it sold cars that exceeded regulatory limits.
  - yuhong 10y ago
    I mean in the sense that the emissions before the EPA was created was far worse.
    - chc 10y ago
      Isn't this like saying that shooting deaths were a much bigger problem in the Old West, so it's not fair to jail someone just for shooting a few people? The crucial fact is that you're breaking the law and killing people in the process, not that you would have killed even more people if the law hadn't been there.
    - Mtinie 10y ago
      Ok, so in your example 120 people were killed by emissions vs. the ~60 that died today. That's an improvement for everyone except for the people who still died. Arguing that killing less people than could have in the past doesn't feel like it's the best way to frame a position, unless the new number is zero.
    - x0x0 10y ago
      And murders were worse 10 years ago too. How on earth is that related to giving someone a pass for a murder now?
      - Udik 10y ago
        The law does give a pass for murder now. Just half the number it gave until a few years ago. So it's really hard to argue that a company in this situation is morally responsible for the murder of some number of people. As that would be equivalent to saying that the government has decided how many people you can murder, perfectly legally, every year. So unless you accept this, it's not murder.
    - btilly 10y ago
      Yes. See https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning-air-and-improving-peoples-health https://www.epa.gov/clean-air-act-overview/progress-cleaning... for estimates of things like how many hundreds of thousands of deaths per year worse we used to be. But that is irrelevant to the question of what the consequences of Volkswagen's actions were. That's like justifying calling a black person a nigger on the basis of that being better than the lynchings that they used to have to put up with.
oh_sigh 10y ago
Are you saying that 60 people died because of excess FCA NoX emissions?
- btilly 10y ago
  No. That is the estimate of the number who died from the Volkswagon emissions.
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

LeifCarrotson 10y ago

It's less about emitting NOx, or an individual Chrysler owner being deceived about how much emissions their car produces. It's not even about a public policy requirement that aims to limit NOx emission, reducing smog and acid rain, which are bad. In the end, it's about FCA lying to the government: claiming to meet the requirement while secretly working around it.

ocschwar 10y ago

If they wrote software that does something wrong, then there is so much premeditation in this that jail time is a must.

djrogers 10y ago

> I personally don't think that jail for simply emitting NOx above limits is worth it The violation doesn't actually state the increased NOx emissions were above any limits, just that the software responsible for the increase wasn't disclosed.