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Well one problem is that "Some of the most populated zones of" everywhere are superfund sites. Another, I learned long ago in the real estate business, is that

Well one problem is that "Some of the most populated zones of" everywhere are superfund sites. Another, I learned long ago in the real estate business, is that superfund sites are just the sites they've taken the trouble to bother "cleaning up". As the article alludes to, it's not the documented TCE sites we need to worry about, it's the undocumented TCE sites that will likely get the average person. This same rule applies to real estate development. One of the dirty secrets of development is that we really have just poisoned a lot of our environment. Now you can work around that in real estate dev because there are creative ways to interpret disclosure regulations. But Mother Nature doesn't care about such tricks. She has a set of, (in this case chemical), rules and if they're broken, she'll happily punish you without a second thought. I'm not sure how we solve the issue of toxins in our environment? It gets complex not only because of the competing interests, but also because research like this will continue to come out, and something we didn't think was a problem, will turn out to have been a problem. So you're in a situation where you know a lot. You even learn more everyday. But you don't know what you don't know.

walleeee 3y ago
I can't help but think we've gone too far in limiting liability Doing so may be an effective way to catalyze invention and economic activity but ignoring externalities becomes existentially risky as our capacities develop If we prefer human arbitration to nature's blind and brutal judgment, we had better put toothy disincentives in place Is it possible that occasionally punishing an honest mistake or absence of forethought may be the price we have to pay to prevent poisoning by diffusion of sociopathy? It feels wrong, but so does perishing because the species can't deploy technology in the long term interest
- birdyrooster 3y ago
  Really well said, gets to the heart of the issue truly.
- anonymouskimmer 3y ago
  > Is it possible that occasionally punishing an honest mistake or absence of forethought may be the price we have to pay to prevent poisoning by diffusion of sociopathy? It's not even about punishing. If you cause a car or home accident because of a mistake, your insurance rates will go up, and if the damage exceeds your coverage, you'll pay out of pocket. There's nothing punitive about it, you're just responsible because of fault. That shouldn't feel wrong. It should evoke pity, but not a feeling of wrongness. For the heirs of the stockholders of these polluting companies we need a special tax to clean up the "accidents" of those companies. These taxes could be limited to the maximum value of the company, or better yet the proportion of the total wealth of the heirs that the company stock represented at the time they sold or dissolved the company. That's still limiting liability, but in the original sense of the term (clawback of sold and wipeout of retained shares). For the heirs of anyone who made a purposeful decision to pollute despite knowing the harms, then the limited liability should be pierced to allow taxation of the fraction of the total wealth of the heirs that derive from the polluter.

walleeee 3y ago

I can't help but think we've gone too far in limiting liability Doing so may be an effective way to catalyze invention and economic activity but ignoring externalities becomes existentially risky as our capacities develop If we prefer human arbitration to nature's blind and brutal judgment, we had better put toothy disincentives in place Is it possible that occasionally punishing an honest mistake or absence of forethought may be the price we have to pay to prevent poisoning by diffusion of sociopathy? It feels wrong, but so does perishing because the species can't deploy technology in the long term interest

birdyrooster 3y ago
Really well said, gets to the heart of the issue truly.
anonymouskimmer 3y ago
> Is it possible that occasionally punishing an honest mistake or absence of forethought may be the price we have to pay to prevent poisoning by diffusion of sociopathy? It's not even about punishing. If you cause a car or home accident because of a mistake, your insurance rates will go up, and if the damage exceeds your coverage, you'll pay out of pocket. There's nothing punitive about it, you're just responsible because of fault. That shouldn't feel wrong. It should evoke pity, but not a feeling of wrongness. For the heirs of the stockholders of these polluting companies we need a special tax to clean up the "accidents" of those companies. These taxes could be limited to the maximum value of the company, or better yet the proportion of the total wealth of the heirs that the company stock represented at the time they sold or dissolved the company. That's still limiting liability, but in the original sense of the term (clawback of sold and wipeout of retained shares). For the heirs of anyone who made a purposeful decision to pollute despite knowing the harms, then the limited liability should be pierced to allow taxation of the fraction of the total wealth of the heirs that derive from the polluter.