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Large companies and those who run them can be both ruthless and amoral. I think it’s a mistake to think the average person’s intuition would apply here.
by drb91 8y ago
Large companies and those who run them can be both ruthless and amoral. I think it’s a mistake to think the average person’s intuition would apply here.
- mywittyname 8y agoThis is it. If you tell a typical senior executive at a company that their actions will lead to the death of 10 million people, their primary concern will be if the company will still make money one the deal, then how they can hide their actions from regulators in order to maximize their return. You might think they would consider whether or not they'd be jailed, but that thought never crosses their mind.
- jjeaff 8y agoI disagree. Very, very few people, CEOs included have that little disregard for human life. Most CEOs aren't that different from you or I.
- drb91 8y agoFWIW I agree, but the CEOs that do fit the mold of ruthless and amoral are extraordinarily well suited for large scale business.
- mywittyname 8y agoI've seen enough evidence of senior leadership of major companies disregarding human life. Car manufactures are particularly bad in this respect, lots of major safety issues in vehicles wouldn't be fixed if not for regulators, since wrongful death lawsuits are cheaper than fixing the issue. You can look at cigarettes companies for trying to deflect from medical evidence that they cause cancer. Similarly with asbestos and black lung. There's so much evidence that senior leadership at large companies are more than willing to let people die rather than pay out. Down vote me all you want, but there's plenty of evidence to convince me.
- cm2187 8y agoBeside moral grounds which you seem to give people little credit for, highly educated people who have been financially successful know how to make money by legal means. The risk benefit ratio is just not worth it particularly in a western country where the chances of getting away with murder are pretty slim (there aren’t many unsolved high profile murders).
- drb91 8y agoI think you are right. As the return on passive market investments go down you should expect to see more of this as the “return” for extralegal tactics will proportionally rise. That said, I think it’s fairly impossible to spot a successful murder as distinct from accident/natural causes. Consider the death of Michael Hastings. Do I think that was murder? Probably not, but there’s no way to firmly put that thought to bed either. It certainly wouldn’t be marked as an “unsolved murder”.
- jacobush 8y agoExactly. "Accidents" can happen. Some families have more of them. You'll never know.