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I believe in strong environmental laws, but the idea that you have to protect people from "future harm" is absurd. How exactly do you do that? I understand that

I believe in strong environmental laws, but the idea that you have to protect people from "future harm" is absurd. How exactly do you do that? I understand that this is in Australia so their laws may be different, but the idea that you can sue someone because of possible future damage is legislating predicting the future. In SF, when the DA refuses to prosecute a criminal and that criminal goes on to kill another person, did that DA fail to protect that victim from future harm? How far does this protection from the future go on? The idea also seems to go in the face of abortion, because a fetus will grow into a human. So does that mean that you need to protect the fetus from harm now because it will be a person in the future? There are just too many absurd situations that this result opens up, I agree that we need strong environmental laws but this is going too far into prophecy and fortune telling and opens up a lot of unintended consequences of what it means to "protect the future".

gotostatement 5y ago
wouldn't a philosophical/legal framework like "reckless endangerment" apply here? there's a line at which harm to future generations becomes reckless
- Bluestein 5y ago
  > philosophical/legal framework like "reckless endangerment" You are onto something here, I think. To avoid ridiculous situations very clearly codify a line, a threshold ...
- ping_pong 5y ago
  How can you prove that expanding the mine actually caused any damages to the environment? With a chemical plant, if it leaks waste and poisons a nearby river, the damages are very real and easy to understand. Expanding a mine that doesn't directly cause damages but increases CO2 doesn't have direct damages that you measure because it's global. Even with something like Fukushima, you can measure the damage it did to Japan, but what about all the radioactive waste it is leaking into the Pacific? How do you measure that catastrophe? Can you even prove that it has done any damage, even though it's obvious?
  - gotostatement 5y ago
    it seems like its a pragmatic question, almost an engineering question about how the legal system can work, and Im hopelessly out of my depth there
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    > How can you prove that expanding the mine actually caused any damages to the environment? How can you prove that someone committed a murder? It’s a difficult question, and there’s probably no method that makes mistakes impossible, but the solution is not to throw up our hands and say “there’s nothing we can possibly do to improve the situation.”
  - TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
    You're on very shaky ground here. It doesn't seem like you're trying very hard to respond to the strongest possible interpretation of the topic at hand, but rather some very finely sliced minutiae. And besides, we can measure one minutes contribution, and we can, if we choose, apply proportional mitigation factors or costs or penalties. We can look at past failures and use those to adjust our course. What exactly are you arguing against here?
- lurquer 5y ago
  The terms being bandied about pertain to intent or culpability. But, there still must be an actual harm. That’s a separate element. Western legal systems do not do very well with hypothetical future harms. If I build a big tower on my property that is rickety and liable to fall onto my neighbor’s house, there is nothing he can sue me for (with some exceptions explained below) until the tower falls and causes harm. When the harm occurs, we then get into whether I need to have been “negligent” or “reckless” or “malicious” or even “strictly liable” to be held responsible: different torts have different standards. That being said, the legislature can step in to address future harm. In my hypo, it may be through a building code which gives neighbors the right to petition the structure be removed before it hurts someone. There’s also the concept of “nuisance” which night give the adjoining neighbor the right to go to court arguing that the tower — due to its rickety nature and likelihood of causing damage — is reducing his property value. But, generally, future harm is a legislative concern. A legislator can outlaw drinking and driving due to its propensity to cause harm. But, a citizen can’t sue a driver for racing through his streets while drunk unless and until he smashes into you. (Finally, there are some remedies for “imminent harm”... protective orders and the like. But, by “imminent” we means an immediate risk of a serious injury. Climate change does not cut it; a deranged ex-boyfriend making threats, however, might.)
  - gotostatement 5y ago
    interesting thanks for writing this out
DocTomoe 5y ago
We already have the concept of "future harm" in law, though. You today are culpable if your negligence today kills people three weeks from now. The only really new aspect in this ruling is the timeframe.
- ping_pong 5y ago
  You aren't culpable today. You are culpable when the people die. You can't be charged for negligence causing death if those deaths haven't happened yet.
  - Pyramus 5y ago
    You definitely can. If you catch me poisoning your water and the water has been poisoned I will most certainly be charged with attempt to commit manslaughter. I wouldn't even need to actually have poisoned the water.
    - beerandt 5y ago
      Which is criminal- and codified via legislation. You can not, however, file a civil wrongful death case, or similar, until the person is actually injured/killed. Common law courts of equity require the damages/injury (for which you sue to seek equity) to be real and committed, not hypothetical or likely.
    - thaumasiotes 5y ago
      Attempted crimes aren't the most theoretically coherent part of the law. But they're better than you're making them out to be; you can't be guilty of "attempt to commit manslaughter" by virtue of your negligence.
teachingassist 5y ago
On the other hand - if I poison someone with a slow-acting poison, is that not "future harm"? Are you claiming that this should therefore not be considered a crime? The court's 'catchwords' summary here focuses on present-day injury to living children rather than the 'future generations' in the HN editorialised title.
Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago
> the idea that you can sue someone because of possible future damage is legislating predicting the future. Aren't the vast majority of laws about preventing potential future harm? Building codes, speed limits, gun control etc. You don't need to wait for a building to collapse and kill someone, or someone to have a head-on before you stop them and penalise the reckless behaviour.
- gruez 5y ago
  >Building codes, speed limits, gun control etc But those are all explicitly legislated, as opposed to this lawsuit which is based on a vague idea of harm. Suppose we don't have statues against speeding. Would it be fair for you to get sued for speeding but haven't harmed anyone?
  - Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago
    The judgement references 12 Acts and over one hundred cases were cited. The judgement would seem to indicate that this is legislated. Perhaps not explicitly, but Australia practices common law, so this is the normal process. That said, I'd expect something like this to be appealed to the High Court.
  - bcrosby95 5y ago
    Building codes, at least in my state, aren't explicitly legislated. There is a carveout for a governmental department that determines them. For better or worse most of the rules of a government aren't explicitly legislated - usually they create the ability for some governmental department to exist and make them instead.
    - xbar 5y ago
      Weird. In my state, there are laws, not just departmental rules.
- dudeinjapan 5y ago
  What about people who live in freezing climates, like Sweden or Alaska? Aren't we reducing harm to those people?
ska 5y ago
> but the idea that you have to protect people from "future harm" is absurd. Is it though? It shows up in the legal system in lots of places already. If you are shown to be professionally negligent, depending on the specifics you can be charged or sued (or both) even if nobody yet was harmed; you've only created a risk.
- ping_pong 5y ago
  But the harm hasn't happened yet. That's like prosecuting Tesla right now for their Autopilot before anyone has been killed because of their faulty software.
  - tshaddox 5y ago
    What’s odd about that? Isn’t it illegal to sell a car without seat belts, and wouldn’t you run into legal trouble before anyone bought the car and was injured in an accident?
    - bombcar 5y ago
      It's the idea behind "no ex-post-facto laws" part. It's illegal to sell a car without seat belts, not because someone may be injured in an accident, but that there is a law requiring seat belts. Otherwise all activities could be found to be harming after the fact. Note that this doesn't apply to civil suits.
      - ska 5y ago
        > Otherwise all activities could be found to be harming after the fact. Right, but that's not the case here - that's not what the court is doing. If they were levying a fine for past damage based on todays knowledge, it would be ex-post-facto. Agree the tesla example isn't great, if that's all you were responding to.
  - ska 5y ago
    So if I design and build a bridge using sub-standard materials and the city discovers it before it collapses and kills people, you shouldn't be able to charge me? There are lots of areas of law where this concept, or similar ones, crop up - that's all I'm saying. Pretending it "doesn't make sense" is illogical, because we've made (legal) sense of it.
laurent92 5y ago
> When the DA refuses to prosecute a criminal and that criminal goes on to kill another person, did that DA fail to protect that victim from future harm? Ahem, didn’t he? In France we have a regular pattern of freeing the criminals or excusing them for their behavior for various “background” reasons, and they go on committing crimes. Judges and the state are both responsible for this situation and fail to protect the citizens. If it weren’t a pattern, one could say they can’t predict the future, but, like discrimination, having a steady trend is proof of negligence. Same for global warming. One might by mistake pollute, but once they know their consequences, it becomes intentional.
vecinu 5y ago
> In SF, when the DA refuses to prosecute a criminal and that criminal goes on to kill another person, did that DA fail to protect that victim from future harm? Yes, of course is the answer to your question. Chesa Boudin is guilty of causing harm to a large number of people for failing to secure the livelihood of people living in SF! That's the major reason why I left last year, I couldn't take the level of crime and apathy from police regarding criminals. Am I going to let the city's governance play Russian roulette with my life? No thanks, I'm a free citizen in a liberal democracy so I can take my life elsewhere.
- ping_pong 5y ago
  He's morally responsible, but is he criminally responsible? Not according to the law. Plus, the direct analogy is that he would be responsible at the time of releasing the prisoner, before someone gets killed. That's why to me this verdict is ridiculous.
  - vecinu 5y ago
    Sometimes it takes a while for the law to catch up to what the populace wants. Imagine if leaders felt pressure to actually do the right thing in most cases because they would otherwise be criminally prosecuted for their incompetence.
ragnese 5y ago
Your abortion thought experiment may be backwards: aren't we protecting the fetus from future harm by aborting it before it can comprehend or experience the multitude of harms it's bound to experience in life? Taken to the extreme, this idea of preventing harm would compel us to have abortions. Of course, that's just not what anyone is saying anyway. Like with many legal constructs, there is an implied "within reason". For example: the U.S. constitution's first amendment and "shouting fire". You're reading way too literally into the concept of "duty of care" or "future harm".
- schoen 5y ago
  > Of course, that's just not what anyone is saying anyway. Except David Benatar and Sarah Perry, maybe?
tshaddox 5y ago
I also don’t know anything about Australian law, but what you describe doesn’t sound crazy to me. We do have reliable methods of predicting the future in certain cases, and many basic features of legal systems rely on those methods (two very obvious example: any regulations about food and drug safety or occupational safety). There’s nothing mystical or strange about this, provided there are reasonable legal standards for culpability.
rlpb 5y ago
There are plenty of situations where it isn't absurd at all. I'd like for it to be criminal for someone to set a bear trap in a children's playground. Even if spotted before a child got hurt, the behaviour should still be criminal on the basis of "future harm". > How far does this protection from the future go on? That's a subjective decision. The judiciary is experienced at dealing with subjectiveness. They make a judgement call. This situation is no different. The fact it's subjective does not make it absurd.
rektide 5y ago
> the idea that you have to protect people from "future harm" is absurd there's a lot of very logical, legalistic, explanatory, replies refuting this, but i feel like a moral reply is also due here. of course the government's job is to insure the welfare of it's people. not just today, not just for tomorrow, but ongoingly. the whole purpose of government is to serve the welfare of the people, and, thankfully, people care about their children, and their children's children. preventing future harm is very much the point of government.
temp8964 5y ago
There is another twist, what if the future generation is doomed to die with the solar system, shall we even care "future generations exists" or not? Or shall we start spending 90% GDP to work on space travel research right now so that the future generations can exist? The whole idea of juridical ruling on “duty of care” to future generations exists is just ridiculous.
- xbar 5y ago
  What about a duty of care for disenfranchised citizens being harmed, such as existing children? They are included in the "future generations" notion.
- morsch 5y ago
  Your hypothetical example is interesting because I'd come to the opposite conclusion. If we knew now that the solar system would become inhospitably to human life in, say, 500 years, no person alive now would be directly affected. But I think we'd absolutely have a moral obligation to start spending resources now to prevent harm from our descendants. Isn't this almost a sci-fi trope? I think it's hypothetical, either because while we know that the solar system has a finite lifetime, the time spans involved are absurdly long -- billions of years --, or because there are many more imminent problems that need solving (which, I suppose, is also related to the large time spans, which makes the solar system's death rather non-imminent).
  - temp8964 5y ago
    What if escaping the solar system requires billions of years of efforts?
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
lazyasciiart 5y ago
If I tell you that I'll kill you next Monday, that's a crime today. Are you arguing that it is absurd to consider punishing me for my possible future action?
- sundvor 5y ago
  Or inaction, rather! I very much believe ignoring the evidence and refusing to act is criminal or at least unethical.

gotostatement 5y ago

wouldn't a philosophical/legal framework like "reckless endangerment" apply here? there's a line at which harm to future generations becomes reckless

Bluestein 5y ago
> philosophical/legal framework like "reckless endangerment" You are onto something here, I think. To avoid ridiculous situations very clearly codify a line, a threshold ...
ping_pong 5y ago
How can you prove that expanding the mine actually caused any damages to the environment? With a chemical plant, if it leaks waste and poisons a nearby river, the damages are very real and easy to understand. Expanding a mine that doesn't directly cause damages but increases CO2 doesn't have direct damages that you measure because it's global. Even with something like Fukushima, you can measure the damage it did to Japan, but what about all the radioactive waste it is leaking into the Pacific? How do you measure that catastrophe? Can you even prove that it has done any damage, even though it's obvious?
- gotostatement 5y ago
  it seems like its a pragmatic question, almost an engineering question about how the legal system can work, and Im hopelessly out of my depth there
- tshaddox 5y ago
  > How can you prove that expanding the mine actually caused any damages to the environment? How can you prove that someone committed a murder? It’s a difficult question, and there’s probably no method that makes mistakes impossible, but the solution is not to throw up our hands and say “there’s nothing we can possibly do to improve the situation.”
- TheSpiceIsLife 5y ago
  You're on very shaky ground here. It doesn't seem like you're trying very hard to respond to the strongest possible interpretation of the topic at hand, but rather some very finely sliced minutiae. And besides, we can measure one minutes contribution, and we can, if we choose, apply proportional mitigation factors or costs or penalties. We can look at past failures and use those to adjust our course. What exactly are you arguing against here?
lurquer 5y ago
The terms being bandied about pertain to intent or culpability. But, there still must be an actual harm. That’s a separate element. Western legal systems do not do very well with hypothetical future harms. If I build a big tower on my property that is rickety and liable to fall onto my neighbor’s house, there is nothing he can sue me for (with some exceptions explained below) until the tower falls and causes harm. When the harm occurs, we then get into whether I need to have been “negligent” or “reckless” or “malicious” or even “strictly liable” to be held responsible: different torts have different standards. That being said, the legislature can step in to address future harm. In my hypo, it may be through a building code which gives neighbors the right to petition the structure be removed before it hurts someone. There’s also the concept of “nuisance” which night give the adjoining neighbor the right to go to court arguing that the tower — due to its rickety nature and likelihood of causing damage — is reducing his property value. But, generally, future harm is a legislative concern. A legislator can outlaw drinking and driving due to its propensity to cause harm. But, a citizen can’t sue a driver for racing through his streets while drunk unless and until he smashes into you. (Finally, there are some remedies for “imminent harm”... protective orders and the like. But, by “imminent” we means an immediate risk of a serious injury. Climate change does not cut it; a deranged ex-boyfriend making threats, however, might.)
- gotostatement 5y ago
  interesting thanks for writing this out

DocTomoe 5y ago

We already have the concept of "future harm" in law, though. You today are culpable if your negligence today kills people three weeks from now. The only really new aspect in this ruling is the timeframe.

ping_pong 5y ago
You aren't culpable today. You are culpable when the people die. You can't be charged for negligence causing death if those deaths haven't happened yet.
- Pyramus 5y ago
  You definitely can. If you catch me poisoning your water and the water has been poisoned I will most certainly be charged with attempt to commit manslaughter. I wouldn't even need to actually have poisoned the water.
  - beerandt 5y ago
    Which is criminal- and codified via legislation. You can not, however, file a civil wrongful death case, or similar, until the person is actually injured/killed. Common law courts of equity require the damages/injury (for which you sue to seek equity) to be real and committed, not hypothetical or likely.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    Attempted crimes aren't the most theoretically coherent part of the law. But they're better than you're making them out to be; you can't be guilty of "attempt to commit manslaughter" by virtue of your negligence.

teachingassist 5y ago

On the other hand - if I poison someone with a slow-acting poison, is that not "future harm"? Are you claiming that this should therefore not be considered a crime? The court's 'catchwords' summary here focuses on present-day injury to living children rather than the 'future generations' in the HN editorialised title.

Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago

> the idea that you can sue someone because of possible future damage is legislating predicting the future. Aren't the vast majority of laws about preventing potential future harm? Building codes, speed limits, gun control etc. You don't need to wait for a building to collapse and kill someone, or someone to have a head-on before you stop them and penalise the reckless behaviour.

gruez 5y ago
>Building codes, speed limits, gun control etc But those are all explicitly legislated, as opposed to this lawsuit which is based on a vague idea of harm. Suppose we don't have statues against speeding. Would it be fair for you to get sued for speeding but haven't harmed anyone?
- Benjamin_Dobell 5y ago
  The judgement references 12 Acts and over one hundred cases were cited. The judgement would seem to indicate that this is legislated. Perhaps not explicitly, but Australia practices common law, so this is the normal process. That said, I'd expect something like this to be appealed to the High Court.
- bcrosby95 5y ago
  Building codes, at least in my state, aren't explicitly legislated. There is a carveout for a governmental department that determines them. For better or worse most of the rules of a government aren't explicitly legislated - usually they create the ability for some governmental department to exist and make them instead.
  - xbar 5y ago
    Weird. In my state, there are laws, not just departmental rules.
dudeinjapan 5y ago
What about people who live in freezing climates, like Sweden or Alaska? Aren't we reducing harm to those people?

ska 5y ago

> but the idea that you have to protect people from "future harm" is absurd. Is it though? It shows up in the legal system in lots of places already. If you are shown to be professionally negligent, depending on the specifics you can be charged or sued (or both) even if nobody yet was harmed; you've only created a risk.

ping_pong 5y ago
But the harm hasn't happened yet. That's like prosecuting Tesla right now for their Autopilot before anyone has been killed because of their faulty software.
- tshaddox 5y ago
  What’s odd about that? Isn’t it illegal to sell a car without seat belts, and wouldn’t you run into legal trouble before anyone bought the car and was injured in an accident?
  - bombcar 5y ago
    It's the idea behind "no ex-post-facto laws" part. It's illegal to sell a car without seat belts, not because someone may be injured in an accident, but that there is a law requiring seat belts. Otherwise all activities could be found to be harming after the fact. Note that this doesn't apply to civil suits.
    - ska 5y ago
      > Otherwise all activities could be found to be harming after the fact. Right, but that's not the case here - that's not what the court is doing. If they were levying a fine for past damage based on todays knowledge, it would be ex-post-facto. Agree the tesla example isn't great, if that's all you were responding to.
- ska 5y ago
  So if I design and build a bridge using sub-standard materials and the city discovers it before it collapses and kills people, you shouldn't be able to charge me? There are lots of areas of law where this concept, or similar ones, crop up - that's all I'm saying. Pretending it "doesn't make sense" is illogical, because we've made (legal) sense of it.

laurent92 5y ago

> When the DA refuses to prosecute a criminal and that criminal goes on to kill another person, did that DA fail to protect that victim from future harm? Ahem, didn’t he? In France we have a regular pattern of freeing the criminals or excusing them for their behavior for various “background” reasons, and they go on committing crimes. Judges and the state are both responsible for this situation and fail to protect the citizens. If it weren’t a pattern, one could say they can’t predict the future, but, like discrimination, having a steady trend is proof of negligence. Same for global warming. One might by mistake pollute, but once they know their consequences, it becomes intentional.

vecinu 5y ago

> In SF, when the DA refuses to prosecute a criminal and that criminal goes on to kill another person, did that DA fail to protect that victim from future harm? Yes, of course is the answer to your question. Chesa Boudin is guilty of causing harm to a large number of people for failing to secure the livelihood of people living in SF! That's the major reason why I left last year, I couldn't take the level of crime and apathy from police regarding criminals. Am I going to let the city's governance play Russian roulette with my life? No thanks, I'm a free citizen in a liberal democracy so I can take my life elsewhere.

ping_pong 5y ago
He's morally responsible, but is he criminally responsible? Not according to the law. Plus, the direct analogy is that he would be responsible at the time of releasing the prisoner, before someone gets killed. That's why to me this verdict is ridiculous.
- vecinu 5y ago
  Sometimes it takes a while for the law to catch up to what the populace wants. Imagine if leaders felt pressure to actually do the right thing in most cases because they would otherwise be criminally prosecuted for their incompetence.

ragnese 5y ago

Your abortion thought experiment may be backwards: aren't we protecting the fetus from future harm by aborting it before it can comprehend or experience the multitude of harms it's bound to experience in life? Taken to the extreme, this idea of preventing harm would compel us to have abortions. Of course, that's just not what anyone is saying anyway. Like with many legal constructs, there is an implied "within reason". For example: the U.S. constitution's first amendment and "shouting fire". You're reading way too literally into the concept of "duty of care" or "future harm".

schoen 5y ago
> Of course, that's just not what anyone is saying anyway. Except David Benatar and Sarah Perry, maybe?

tshaddox 5y ago

I also don’t know anything about Australian law, but what you describe doesn’t sound crazy to me. We do have reliable methods of predicting the future in certain cases, and many basic features of legal systems rely on those methods (two very obvious example: any regulations about food and drug safety or occupational safety). There’s nothing mystical or strange about this, provided there are reasonable legal standards for culpability.

rlpb 5y ago

There are plenty of situations where it isn't absurd at all. I'd like for it to be criminal for someone to set a bear trap in a children's playground. Even if spotted before a child got hurt, the behaviour should still be criminal on the basis of "future harm". > How far does this protection from the future go on? That's a subjective decision. The judiciary is experienced at dealing with subjectiveness. They make a judgement call. This situation is no different. The fact it's subjective does not make it absurd.

rektide 5y ago

> the idea that you have to protect people from "future harm" is absurd there's a lot of very logical, legalistic, explanatory, replies refuting this, but i feel like a moral reply is also due here. of course the government's job is to insure the welfare of it's people. not just today, not just for tomorrow, but ongoingly. the whole purpose of government is to serve the welfare of the people, and, thankfully, people care about their children, and their children's children. preventing future harm is very much the point of government.

temp8964 5y ago

There is another twist, what if the future generation is doomed to die with the solar system, shall we even care "future generations exists" or not? Or shall we start spending 90% GDP to work on space travel research right now so that the future generations can exist? The whole idea of juridical ruling on “duty of care” to future generations exists is just ridiculous.

xbar 5y ago
What about a duty of care for disenfranchised citizens being harmed, such as existing children? They are included in the "future generations" notion.
morsch 5y ago
Your hypothetical example is interesting because I'd come to the opposite conclusion. If we knew now that the solar system would become inhospitably to human life in, say, 500 years, no person alive now would be directly affected. But I think we'd absolutely have a moral obligation to start spending resources now to prevent harm from our descendants. Isn't this almost a sci-fi trope? I think it's hypothetical, either because while we know that the solar system has a finite lifetime, the time spans involved are absurdly long -- billions of years --, or because there are many more imminent problems that need solving (which, I suppose, is also related to the large time spans, which makes the solar system's death rather non-imminent).
- temp8964 5y ago
  What if escaping the solar system requires billions of years of efforts?

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

lazyasciiart 5y ago

If I tell you that I'll kill you next Monday, that's a crime today. Are you arguing that it is absurd to consider punishing me for my possible future action?

sundvor 5y ago
Or inaction, rather! I very much believe ignoring the evidence and refusing to act is criminal or at least unethical.