5 ms·

There is no reason to go into the comments of every post that shows a price of the fee a company paid in order to express why you think a company that is fined

There is no reason to go into the comments of every post that shows a price of the fee a company paid in order to express why you think a company that is fined should be crippled because of it, the point is to deter people not to lay nuclear landmines for companies to be destroyed over. 99% of these comments are just maliciously lashing out about 'corporations' and no consideration that chomping into 5% of net profits has an effect greater than some bonus packages of the management teams (less cigars to chomp!)

jgeada 3y ago
Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah, figured as much. If you can ruin a person's entire life over a "mistake", you can definitely do the same to a company, or even better, to the decision makers at that company. Doing anything else just encourages continued bad behavior. No speculation, we have decades of observational data showing that companies and executives will do pretty much anything for a buck, legal or not.
- some_random 3y ago
  Yeah I think many here would be fine applying the same logic to people.
- marginalia_nu 3y ago
  How about not doing either?
- chimpanzee 3y ago
  It comes down to self-interest and the balance of power, not morals or human rights or any form of idealism that acts as a soft control of the masses. Corporations are a faceless entity with tremendous power, both to harm and to benefit. The average individual lacking comparative capital or influence has no weapon with which to fight and no gift which which to bribe. Government, the monopolist of violence, wields its power accordingly. Why would it extinguish a benefactor when it can simply crack the whip to keep them in line and remind them of whose hand is on the whip in the first place? Whereas, the larger set of powerless individuals are handled brutally, not because it’s best but simply because it’s expedient and without consequence to the power-holder. A secondary benefit, intentionally achieved by the most insidious of governments, is that the extinguishment of minor troublemakers removes the seeds from which a population might grow to realize their own latent power via cooperative “trouble-making”.
  - jgeada 3y ago
    Government, in a democracy, is supposed to represent the choices of the people. They serve us. If they're not serving you, you are voting wrong. If you vote for corrupt imbeciles because their sound bites align with some of your narrow interests, don't expect them stop being corrupt imbeciles when they are in power.
    - chimpanzee 3y ago
      > …supposed to… You’re right. But “supposed to” is just an ideal. > …They serve us. Do they really? The evidence suggests otherwise. So we must ask, why do they not serve us? Leading us to… > If they're not serving you, you are voting wrong Well sure, in a democracy, if the representatives don’t work towards the population’s interests, then the population must be “voting wrong”.[1] But that is just begging the question… “Why are they voting wrong?” And sure…“They are fooled.” But, How? “They are fools.” But, Why? [1] Ignoring the problem of asymmetric information. A population simply does not a have access to all the information needed to ensure they’ll be served properly. The representatives know far more about their own intentions than any set of voters ever could.
      - cjblomqvist 3y ago
        Proper education, a corner stone of democracy (sometimes forgotten? In particular in that context). Not the full story, but for sure a critical part of it.
        chimpanzee 3y ago
        You might be interested in: Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt: https://ia800103.us.archive.org/22/items/jeff_schmidt_disciplined_minds/Jeff%20Schmidt%20-%20Disciplined%20Minds%20A%20Critical%20Look%20at%20Salaried%20Professionals%20and%20the%20Soul-battering%20System%20That%20Shapes%20Their%20Lives.pdf https://ia800103.us.archive.org/22/items/jeff_schmidt_discip... The Crisis of Democracy: https://ia800305.us.archive.org/29/items/TheCrisisOfDemocracy-TrilateralCommission-1975/crisis_of_democracy_text.pdf https://ia800305.us.archive.org/29/items/TheCrisisOfDemocrac... Both address the issue of education in the context of democracy and the current economic order. The first being a proper critique and the second being from the perspective of the elites and power-holders, particularly the Trilateral Commission, helmed by Rockefeller. And its concerns and conclusions can be interpreted as being antagonistic to the goals and interests of the populace. It’s the origin of the phrase “an excess of democracy”. An “excess” according to who? one should reasonably ask… Edit: I says to myself, why not submit these to HN and maybe get a little discussion going? And so I did… Disciplined Minds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643885 Crisis of Democracy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643916
- tivert 3y ago
  >> There is no reason to go into the comments of every post that shows a price of the fee a company paid in order to express why you think a company that is fined should be crippled because of it, the point is to deter people not to lay nuclear landmines for companies to be destroyed over. > Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah, figured as much. Kinda sorta. There's not an exact equivalence. We don't punish every crime with the death penalty. Also, there are a lot more people than there are hard disk manufactures. "Nuking" a hard disk manufacture over a violation to deter others has a lot more downsides for the national community (let's make WD a monopoly as a deterrent?) than "nuking" a person for a violation.
  - jgeada 3y ago
    The idea would be not to punish the corporation itself (a nebulous concept in any case), but to punish the decision makers that made the decision to pursue illegal profits. Fire the executives and the board, as they're the ultimate decision makers, and have the entire set replaced by a team with clearer judgement of the line between right and wrong. This would accomplish the desired intent without perturbing the number of players in the market place.
    - cjblomqvist 3y ago
      If it's costly to the corporations, don't you think the owners would do such a thing? It's not an either or situation, but hitting them at the proper level of abstraction/let the internal "market" forces play it out.
      - jgeada 3y ago
        You can't make it costly enough to the corporation without incurring undue collateral damage to a whole lot of people that had nothing to do with it. The point of is to focus the cost onto the actual decision makers responsible for the poor decision making; corporation would continue to survive, without collateral damage to employees and marketplace.
- ROTMetro 3y ago
  [flagged]
- _2d30 3y ago
  > Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah, figured as much. I like that you smugly answered your question for them. Tilt at the windmills and strawmen all you want I guess.

jgeada 3y ago

Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah, figured as much. If you can ruin a person's entire life over a "mistake", you can definitely do the same to a company, or even better, to the decision makers at that company. Doing anything else just encourages continued bad behavior. No speculation, we have decades of observational data showing that companies and executives will do pretty much anything for a buck, legal or not.

some_random 3y ago
Yeah I think many here would be fine applying the same logic to people.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
How about not doing either?
chimpanzee 3y ago
It comes down to self-interest and the balance of power, not morals or human rights or any form of idealism that acts as a soft control of the masses. Corporations are a faceless entity with tremendous power, both to harm and to benefit. The average individual lacking comparative capital or influence has no weapon with which to fight and no gift which which to bribe. Government, the monopolist of violence, wields its power accordingly. Why would it extinguish a benefactor when it can simply crack the whip to keep them in line and remind them of whose hand is on the whip in the first place? Whereas, the larger set of powerless individuals are handled brutally, not because it’s best but simply because it’s expedient and without consequence to the power-holder. A secondary benefit, intentionally achieved by the most insidious of governments, is that the extinguishment of minor troublemakers removes the seeds from which a population might grow to realize their own latent power via cooperative “trouble-making”.
- jgeada 3y ago
  Government, in a democracy, is supposed to represent the choices of the people. They serve us. If they're not serving you, you are voting wrong. If you vote for corrupt imbeciles because their sound bites align with some of your narrow interests, don't expect them stop being corrupt imbeciles when they are in power.
  - chimpanzee 3y ago
    > …supposed to… You’re right. But “supposed to” is just an ideal. > …They serve us. Do they really? The evidence suggests otherwise. So we must ask, why do they not serve us? Leading us to… > If they're not serving you, you are voting wrong Well sure, in a democracy, if the representatives don’t work towards the population’s interests, then the population must be “voting wrong”.[1] But that is just begging the question… “Why are they voting wrong?” And sure…“They are fooled.” But, How? “They are fools.” But, Why? [1] Ignoring the problem of asymmetric information. A population simply does not a have access to all the information needed to ensure they’ll be served properly. The representatives know far more about their own intentions than any set of voters ever could.
    - cjblomqvist 3y ago
      Proper education, a corner stone of democracy (sometimes forgotten? In particular in that context). Not the full story, but for sure a critical part of it.
      - chimpanzee 3y ago
        You might be interested in: Disciplined Minds by Jeff Schmidt: https://ia800103.us.archive.org/22/items/jeff_schmidt_disciplined_minds/Jeff%20Schmidt%20-%20Disciplined%20Minds%20A%20Critical%20Look%20at%20Salaried%20Professionals%20and%20the%20Soul-battering%20System%20That%20Shapes%20Their%20Lives.pdf https://ia800103.us.archive.org/22/items/jeff_schmidt_discip... The Crisis of Democracy: https://ia800305.us.archive.org/29/items/TheCrisisOfDemocracy-TrilateralCommission-1975/crisis_of_democracy_text.pdf https://ia800305.us.archive.org/29/items/TheCrisisOfDemocrac... Both address the issue of education in the context of democracy and the current economic order. The first being a proper critique and the second being from the perspective of the elites and power-holders, particularly the Trilateral Commission, helmed by Rockefeller. And its concerns and conclusions can be interpreted as being antagonistic to the goals and interests of the populace. It’s the origin of the phrase “an excess of democracy”. An “excess” according to who? one should reasonably ask… Edit: I says to myself, why not submit these to HN and maybe get a little discussion going? And so I did… Disciplined Minds: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643885 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643885 Crisis of Democracy: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643916 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35643916
tivert 3y ago
>> There is no reason to go into the comments of every post that shows a price of the fee a company paid in order to express why you think a company that is fined should be crippled because of it, the point is to deter people not to lay nuclear landmines for companies to be destroyed over. > Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah, figured as much. Kinda sorta. There's not an exact equivalence. We don't punish every crime with the death penalty. Also, there are a lot more people than there are hard disk manufactures. "Nuking" a hard disk manufacture over a violation to deter others has a lot more downsides for the national community (let's make WD a monopoly as a deterrent?) than "nuking" a person for a violation.
- jgeada 3y ago
  The idea would be not to punish the corporation itself (a nebulous concept in any case), but to punish the decision makers that made the decision to pursue illegal profits. Fire the executives and the board, as they're the ultimate decision makers, and have the entire set replaced by a team with clearer judgement of the line between right and wrong. This would accomplish the desired intent without perturbing the number of players in the market place.
  - cjblomqvist 3y ago
    If it's costly to the corporations, don't you think the owners would do such a thing? It's not an either or situation, but hitting them at the proper level of abstraction/let the internal "market" forces play it out.
    - jgeada 3y ago
      You can't make it costly enough to the corporation without incurring undue collateral damage to a whole lot of people that had nothing to do with it. The point of is to focus the cost onto the actual decision makers responsible for the poor decision making; corporation would continue to survive, without collateral damage to employees and marketplace.
ROTMetro 3y ago
[flagged]
_2d30 3y ago
> Shouldn't the same logic then apply to people? Yeah, figured as much. I like that you smugly answered your question for them. Tilt at the windmills and strawmen all you want I guess.