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What about when an SV darling company offers "lifetime" product and sells itself to another SV darling? I'm of course talking about joyent but it could be me ne

What about when an SV darling company offers "lifetime" product and sells itself to another SV darling? I'm of course talking about joyent but it could be me next time. If we get rid of limited liability, do I become liable for BP's oil spills because I have own a few cents worth of petroleum stock through vanguard? I like your idea that companies should be able to bear the cost of a possible future liability. I don't know how we can implement it besides some form of insurance (like sometime else said a $10 fine per person per breach but I'd up it to (2000 * minimum wage per hour) for every incident per person. At some point though we will need criminal charges for negligence or worse attempts of cover up (Equifax). We need to make it easier to convict CEOs and the board to put them in prison in case of attempted cover up or non disclosure.

colorint 9y ago
The global financial crisis showed that insurance isn't the answer. The problem with "hedging against all futures" is that the hedging is part of the system, and when the hedge grows to the scale of the thing being hedged, you have to start asking how you hedge the hedge (and so forth). That is, if Equifax can't pay out for a sufficiently large mistake, why would you expect their insurer to be able to do so? And, worse, what if the insurer is "too big to fail," so instead you just have the public serve as the backstop? Hence I think your latter point is right, executives really need to be more criminally liable. It's hardly unheard of, even if Ken Lay died before sentencing.
- sp332 9y ago
  I would put it the other way: if you can't afford insurance to cover the potential damage you're doing, then you're not allowed to do it. And I don't mean unforseeable events, I mean something obvious about your business, like creating a single giant repository of data about other people and then not securing it. Of course the hackers are directly responsible for the damage, but Equifax's negligence sure didn't help. Maybe a fractional multiplier for sharing responsibility.
  - inetknght 9y ago
    Then who insures the insurers? Are insurances the next "too big to fail" type of companies?
    - sp332 9y ago
      Since the insurers are collecting money from lots of companies, maybe even from different industries, the odds of that happening are a lot lower.
deleted 9y ago
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colorint 9y ago

The global financial crisis showed that insurance isn't the answer. The problem with "hedging against all futures" is that the hedging is part of the system, and when the hedge grows to the scale of the thing being hedged, you have to start asking how you hedge the hedge (and so forth). That is, if Equifax can't pay out for a sufficiently large mistake, why would you expect their insurer to be able to do so? And, worse, what if the insurer is "too big to fail," so instead you just have the public serve as the backstop? Hence I think your latter point is right, executives really need to be more criminally liable. It's hardly unheard of, even if Ken Lay died before sentencing.

sp332 9y ago
I would put it the other way: if you can't afford insurance to cover the potential damage you're doing, then you're not allowed to do it. And I don't mean unforseeable events, I mean something obvious about your business, like creating a single giant repository of data about other people and then not securing it. Of course the hackers are directly responsible for the damage, but Equifax's negligence sure didn't help. Maybe a fractional multiplier for sharing responsibility.
- inetknght 9y ago
  Then who insures the insurers? Are insurances the next "too big to fail" type of companies?
  - sp332 9y ago
    Since the insurers are collecting money from lots of companies, maybe even from different industries, the odds of that happening are a lot lower.

deleted 9y ago

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