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This should be prosecuted as crimes against humanity, along with lengthy jail times for execs involved in the issue. They won't be, for obvious reasons.
by MisterBastahrd 5y ago
This should be prosecuted as crimes against humanity, along with lengthy jail times for execs involved in the issue. They won't be, for obvious reasons.
- bpodgursky 5y agoCan we stop throwing around cries for imprisonment for things which are (1) not even obviously a legislated crime and (2) not intentional? This has become a super common meme recently. There are perfectly viable ways to financially disincentivize companies (or individuals!) from bad acts like this without building a society where the default punishment for anything zeitgeist-bad is imprisonment? Prison is a last resort when you _can't_ get people to follow laws using other means (ie, a serial rapist is not going to be deterred by financial penalties). But if a CEO or corporation is doing something clearly for profit, there is an obvious and easy way to prevent it without taking someone's life away. It's barbaric and unnecessary.
- zz865 5y agoIt seems to be an American attitude where its just normal to relentlessly imprison people who fall out of line.
- bpodgursky 5y agoI'm American! Stop doing it! It's not even the traditional law-and-order conservatives calling for this; it's leftists who just want to redirect the industrial prison system at a new target! The system is bad, no matter who you target!
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoYes, it's bad. Which is why the most appropriate solution for those who hold themselves above the system due to their wealth and influence is to stick them directly in the worst parts of it and force them to experience it for years.
- bpodgursky 5y agoYou know, deep down, this makes you a bad person, right?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoI don't believe that subjecting someone to the same punitive system they have an outsized influence over is a bad thing. I believe it's necessary, so that when they get out, that they work to change it lest they return one day. The funny thing about contrition is that you usually need to be forced into it.
- worik 5y ago"...redirect the industrial prison system at a new target!" Absolutely. A target that deserves it. Short prison sentences for white collar crime, rather than easy to pay fines, would change the landscape
- MisterBastahrd 5y agoPrison is the only thing that deters millionaires and billionaires from purposefully destroying priceless treasures to humanity to get at the commonplace resources that lay underneath. Financial disincentives have NEVER worked because our system isn't designed to punish these things, by design.
- leafmeal 5y agoIf the reason they do these things is for money (which I think is fair to assume) then money is clearly an effective incentive. The fines just have to make it unprofitable.
- wizzwizz4 5y agoFines are tax-deductible. They're better at gaming the system than policymakers are at fixing it.
- bpodgursky 5y ago1. That's literally not true, you're just making stuff up: https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102915/are-irs-penalties-tax-deductible.asp https://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/102915/are-irs-pena... 2. Even if it was, do you understand what a deduction is? You still lose money; you'd be changing the base on your federal income payments, but since your income tax is at most 40% or so, you're still paying at minimum 60% of the penalty (even if it was deductible, which it is not).
- wizzwizz4 5y ago1. That's a very specific type of penalty. 2. Business taxes aren't the same as individuals taxes.
- bromuro 5y agoI agree, punishment is revenge. It doesn’t work.
- worik 5y agoIt has not been tried for crimes of this sort.