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And with (financial) protection for those who refuse to partake and report the crime. I guess the person pressing the dump button would usually make just above

And with (financial) protection for those who refuse to partake and report the crime. I guess the person pressing the dump button would usually make just above minimum wage and would be considered unimportant enough to fire if he stood up for what's right so there is no incentive except for a moral one which I would argue is not enough for most people.

Spivak 6y ago
As much as the liberal-libertarian crowd on HN likes to be vocal against most forms of government licensure, protection from ethical breaches like this is one of the best things about them. You can tell your employer to pound sand because neither you nor anyone they could replace you with will be willing to risk their license to do something unethical. And even if they could find someone sketch to try and push it through you’re protected by your professional review board.
- hurt_and_afraid 6y ago
  I really love this term you've used: 'liberal-libertarian'. It succintly sums up the odd attitudes held by so many posters who barrack so strongly for near-radical left-wing views, and then balk at the idea of holding corporations even remotely responsible for their actions.
- bitcharmer 6y ago
  I'm not leftist and I haven't observed any strong bias here. HN crowd is leftist only by US standards but then US is a country where most people think public health care is communism.
  - adventured 6y ago
    ~42%-45% of the US population is in Medicaid, Medicare or other government healthcare solutions. It's very clear that most people in the US do not think socialized / public healthcare is tantamount to Communism. The US is left leaning compared to the majority of all nations. Besides that, the US is far more progressive than eg Europe in many respects (and that's ignoring parts of Europe still ruled by actual fascism and dictatorship, countries where it's perfectly legal to beat your wife if you so choose and being gay is practically a crime). In the majority of Europe gay marriage is still illegal. How much more regressive and backwards can you get? The US is at least a decade ahead of Europe when it comes to gay rights and identity / gender matters. In Denmark they're committing vast human rights violations against minority Muslims while the world looks the other way. Is that left by US standards? I don't see the US forcing cultural eradication upon Muslims or taking their children away from them and indoctrinating them with nationalistic propaganda. Across Western Europe de facto Neo Nazi parties hold immense political power. In France Macron has practically declared open cultural war against Muslims. Formerly open immigration nations like Sweden have become hyper xenophobic and have locked down access. Neo Nazism is rampant in Germany and so is xenophobia. Meanwhile the US is one of the few affluent nations on the planet that still welcomes the poor and the non-skilled, you don't need to be rich or successful to immigrate into the US (and that's before Biden's Presidency begins, in which the Democrats will dramatically liberalize immigration). Progressiveness is vanishing from Europe, while the US is becoming more progressive by the decade. So where are all these nations around the world that are a lot further left than the US? There are maybe a dozen, tops. The US now spends more on its welfare state as a share of its economy than either Canada or Australia. In the next 10-15 years it'll catch up to Britain on that point. The US is also progressing much faster on drug decriminalization and legalization than Europe is. And half of Europe is guaranteed to remain backwards, regressive, on all of the previously mentioned items.
    - bserge 6y ago
      Wow, uh, where do you get your news on Europe?
      - bitcharmer 6y ago
        This is a good evidence for what I refer to as the rise of redditism on HN (US-biased views pretty much detached from reality, but constituting the majority of up/down-votes). This is further supported by the dynamics of up/down votes. You will see GP comment up-voted when the US wakes up.
        pessimizer 6y ago
        This is not a change, it has always happened here. Also, saying that HN is turning into reddit is so old that there's a rule about not doing it.
        africanboy 6y ago
        You mean Americans being average Americans?
    - bitcharmer 6y ago
      > The US is left leaning compared to the majority of all nations. I stopped reading after this
    - CRConrad 6y ago
      > [T]he US is far more progressive than eg Europe... This post is the craziest collection of misconceptions and outright untruths I've read in... A very, very long time.
    - africanboy 6y ago
      > ~42%-45% of the US population is in Medicaid, Medicare or other government healthcare solutions Please, not this argument again! Medicaid is an health insurance, not free health care! They are completely different things (no, it's not the same thing as providing free healthcare) And btw, only 23% benefit from it "providing free health insurance to 74 million low-income and disabled people (23% of Americans)" > Progressiveness is vanishing from Europe, while the US is becoming more progressive by the decade The only progress US has made has been the number of homicides... A nation where a thousand people every year are killed by the police and that has almost 700 people in jail every 100,000 of population (25% of the global jail population) looks more like a dictatorships than a progressive country. As a comparison in Italy for the police to kill a thousand people it would take 333 years. USA has only 5.5 times the population of Italy.
  - pessimizer 6y ago
    "Liberal-libertarian" isn't "leftist," and that's pretty clear from the context of the comment. It's minarchist, free-marketeer, etc.
hchz 6y ago
CWA, CAA, CERCLA, and RCRA provide these protections for whistleblowers and a framework for financial incentives, though these incentives are paltry compared to SEC whistleblower rewards. https://echo.epa.gov/report-environmental-violations https://echo.epa.gov/report-environmental-violations https://www.whistleblowers.gov https://www.whistleblowers.gov
- ineedasername 6y ago
  The problem is also that the power imbalance is severely stacked against the whistleblower. Sure, retaliation isn't allowed, but it's a far stretch to think it doesn't happen. I've seen it happen, or what probably was retaliation, but how do I know for sure? They said the person wasn't competent or doing their job when they got fired. I don't know for sure if that was true, but I do know they reported significant theft that would likely have involved someone higher up, and not long afterwards he was fired.
  - hchz 6y ago
    My point was only that such protections and rewards already exist. I find it obvious that such retaliation happens, otherwise it would be strange to have such laws.

Spivak 6y ago

As much as the liberal-libertarian crowd on HN likes to be vocal against most forms of government licensure, protection from ethical breaches like this is one of the best things about them. You can tell your employer to pound sand because neither you nor anyone they could replace you with will be willing to risk their license to do something unethical. And even if they could find someone sketch to try and push it through you’re protected by your professional review board.

hurt_and_afraid 6y ago
I really love this term you've used: 'liberal-libertarian'. It succintly sums up the odd attitudes held by so many posters who barrack so strongly for near-radical left-wing views, and then balk at the idea of holding corporations even remotely responsible for their actions.
bitcharmer 6y ago
I'm not leftist and I haven't observed any strong bias here. HN crowd is leftist only by US standards but then US is a country where most people think public health care is communism.
- adventured 6y ago
  ~42%-45% of the US population is in Medicaid, Medicare or other government healthcare solutions. It's very clear that most people in the US do not think socialized / public healthcare is tantamount to Communism. The US is left leaning compared to the majority of all nations. Besides that, the US is far more progressive than eg Europe in many respects (and that's ignoring parts of Europe still ruled by actual fascism and dictatorship, countries where it's perfectly legal to beat your wife if you so choose and being gay is practically a crime). In the majority of Europe gay marriage is still illegal. How much more regressive and backwards can you get? The US is at least a decade ahead of Europe when it comes to gay rights and identity / gender matters. In Denmark they're committing vast human rights violations against minority Muslims while the world looks the other way. Is that left by US standards? I don't see the US forcing cultural eradication upon Muslims or taking their children away from them and indoctrinating them with nationalistic propaganda. Across Western Europe de facto Neo Nazi parties hold immense political power. In France Macron has practically declared open cultural war against Muslims. Formerly open immigration nations like Sweden have become hyper xenophobic and have locked down access. Neo Nazism is rampant in Germany and so is xenophobia. Meanwhile the US is one of the few affluent nations on the planet that still welcomes the poor and the non-skilled, you don't need to be rich or successful to immigrate into the US (and that's before Biden's Presidency begins, in which the Democrats will dramatically liberalize immigration). Progressiveness is vanishing from Europe, while the US is becoming more progressive by the decade. So where are all these nations around the world that are a lot further left than the US? There are maybe a dozen, tops. The US now spends more on its welfare state as a share of its economy than either Canada or Australia. In the next 10-15 years it'll catch up to Britain on that point. The US is also progressing much faster on drug decriminalization and legalization than Europe is. And half of Europe is guaranteed to remain backwards, regressive, on all of the previously mentioned items.
  - bserge 6y ago
    Wow, uh, where do you get your news on Europe?
    - bitcharmer 6y ago
      This is a good evidence for what I refer to as the rise of redditism on HN (US-biased views pretty much detached from reality, but constituting the majority of up/down-votes). This is further supported by the dynamics of up/down votes. You will see GP comment up-voted when the US wakes up.
      - pessimizer 6y ago
        This is not a change, it has always happened here. Also, saying that HN is turning into reddit is so old that there's a rule about not doing it.
      - africanboy 6y ago
        You mean Americans being average Americans?
  - bitcharmer 6y ago
    > The US is left leaning compared to the majority of all nations. I stopped reading after this
  - CRConrad 6y ago
    > [T]he US is far more progressive than eg Europe... This post is the craziest collection of misconceptions and outright untruths I've read in... A very, very long time.
  - africanboy 6y ago
    > ~42%-45% of the US population is in Medicaid, Medicare or other government healthcare solutions Please, not this argument again! Medicaid is an health insurance, not free health care! They are completely different things (no, it's not the same thing as providing free healthcare) And btw, only 23% benefit from it "providing free health insurance to 74 million low-income and disabled people (23% of Americans)" > Progressiveness is vanishing from Europe, while the US is becoming more progressive by the decade The only progress US has made has been the number of homicides... A nation where a thousand people every year are killed by the police and that has almost 700 people in jail every 100,000 of population (25% of the global jail population) looks more like a dictatorships than a progressive country. As a comparison in Italy for the police to kill a thousand people it would take 333 years. USA has only 5.5 times the population of Italy.
- pessimizer 6y ago
  "Liberal-libertarian" isn't "leftist," and that's pretty clear from the context of the comment. It's minarchist, free-marketeer, etc.

hchz 6y ago

CWA, CAA, CERCLA, and RCRA provide these protections for whistleblowers and a framework for financial incentives, though these incentives are paltry compared to SEC whistleblower rewards. https://echo.epa.gov/report-environmental-violations https://echo.epa.gov/report-environmental-violations https://www.whistleblowers.gov https://www.whistleblowers.gov

ineedasername 6y ago
The problem is also that the power imbalance is severely stacked against the whistleblower. Sure, retaliation isn't allowed, but it's a far stretch to think it doesn't happen. I've seen it happen, or what probably was retaliation, but how do I know for sure? They said the person wasn't competent or doing their job when they got fired. I don't know for sure if that was true, but I do know they reported significant theft that would likely have involved someone higher up, and not long afterwards he was fired.
- hchz 6y ago
  My point was only that such protections and rewards already exist. I find it obvious that such retaliation happens, otherwise it would be strange to have such laws.