2 ms·

Fifty years of loudly covering up for profitable carcinogens.

CoastalCoder 5y ago
I share your concern that we (as a society) seem more focused on treating cancer than in addressing whatever environmental factors increase the risk. I'm curious about how much this stems from the U.S. legal system's approach to liability. IIUC, a company can contaminate the air/land/water to shocking degrees, but will only be held liable if the government chooses to enforce environmental regulations or an individual can prove that that particular source of contamination caused a particular harm to that individual. So, for example, if I were to dump 1000 gallons of dioxin in some aquifer, and a few more people got prostate cancer than one would statistically expect, I may end up paying only the cost of defending a law suit. Despite the myriad of evidence that I should have known that it was taking a major gamble with the lives of current and future people. And if I or my company was found guilty, in all likelihood I'd only have to pay for the harm to the particular persons who sued me. Which, with "proper" incorporation, I could walk away from with most of my personal wealth intact. If I'm correct about this, it seems very far from true justice to me. Nor does it seem like an effective deterrent. My current view (which I hold lightly) is that a more just policy would be that (1) such crimes carry the same legal penalties as attempted mass murder or attempted terrorism; (2) all corporate veils are ignored; and (3) there is no limitation of liability for stockholders, even for publicly traded stocks.
- elmomle 5y ago
  Is (3) either implementable or necessary (for the former case, are you liable the if you hold stock the moment the decision is made? What if the decision is kept secret from public stockholders?)? Agreed, though, that quality of life would be higher if decisions that materially degrade the quality of life for members of a society were judged as crimes against society, with antediluvian punishments (lifetime imprisonment at least, and stripping of all assets from the family) for all culpable corporate officers. Of course this also runs into problems, chief of which is: when does something materially degrade quality of life? How many tons of carbon emissions is permissible, for example? Once something is known to be bad, does a public oversight panel determine how much is to be allowed for a given company? And if so, how do you avoid (1) dramatically slowing innovation (which would be fine except we're still in competition with other countries) and (2) corruption of such processes over time?
- forgotmypw17 5y ago
  I think most carcinogens we are exposed to aren't even from corporate pollution, although it's also a big source, and connected to the products we use, but from products we buy and use voluntarily without doing adequate research.

I share your concern that we (as a society) seem more focused on treating cancer than in addressing whatever environmental factors increase the risk. I'm curious about how much this stems from the U.S. legal system's approach to liability. IIUC, a company can contaminate the air/land/water to shocking degrees, but will only be held liable if the government chooses to enforce environmental regulations or an individual can prove that that particular source of contamination caused a particular harm to that individual. So, for example, if I were to dump 1000 gallons of dioxin in some aquifer, and a few more people got prostate cancer than one would statistically expect, I may end up paying only the cost of defending a law suit. Despite the myriad of evidence that I should have known that it was taking a major gamble with the lives of current and future people. And if I or my company was found guilty, in all likelihood I'd only have to pay for the harm to the particular persons who sued me. Which, with "proper" incorporation, I could walk away from with most of my personal wealth intact. If I'm correct about this, it seems very far from true justice to me. Nor does it seem like an effective deterrent. My current view (which I hold lightly) is that a more just policy would be that (1) such crimes carry the same legal penalties as attempted mass murder or attempted terrorism; (2) all corporate veils are ignored; and (3) there is no limitation of liability for stockholders, even for publicly traded stocks.

elmomle 5y ago
Is (3) either implementable or necessary (for the former case, are you liable the if you hold stock the moment the decision is made? What if the decision is kept secret from public stockholders?)? Agreed, though, that quality of life would be higher if decisions that materially degrade the quality of life for members of a society were judged as crimes against society, with antediluvian punishments (lifetime imprisonment at least, and stripping of all assets from the family) for all culpable corporate officers. Of course this also runs into problems, chief of which is: when does something materially degrade quality of life? How many tons of carbon emissions is permissible, for example? Once something is known to be bad, does a public oversight panel determine how much is to be allowed for a given company? And if so, how do you avoid (1) dramatically slowing innovation (which would be fine except we're still in competition with other countries) and (2) corruption of such processes over time?
forgotmypw17 5y ago
I think most carcinogens we are exposed to aren't even from corporate pollution, although it's also a big source, and connected to the products we use, but from products we buy and use voluntarily without doing adequate research.