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What about the owners and C level execs, are they reduced to zero personal assets yet? This infatuation with letting rich companies go with a slap on the wrist

What about the owners and C level execs, are they reduced to zero personal assets yet? This infatuation with letting rich companies go with a slap on the wrist because of some "prove willful negligence" is silly. Certain actions, including polluting the entire world, should be proof enough on their own. You shouldn't get away with something just because you CHOSE not do enough research beforehand to be aware of dangers. >We either need some kind of intrinsic motivators, i.e make it in the interest of corporations to protect the environment. You do this by deleting any company that shows itself to be poor stewards of the environment, and making sure it really really really hurts, financially, for the ones who profited from it, including high level management. "Just doing my job" shouldn't suffice when your job is overseeing a chemical of unknown danger. When involving yourself in an unethical company means you lose your fortune, the incentives will be aligned. If that means rich people do extensive due diligence before involving themselves in anything, surely that's a good thing right?

gruez 3y ago
> What about the owners and C level execs, are they reduced to zero personal assets yet? This infatuation with letting rich companies go with a slap on the wrist because of some "prove willful negligence" is silly. Certain actions, including polluting the entire world, should be proof enough on their own. You shouldn't get away with something just because you CHOSE not do enough research beforehand to be aware of dangers. That seems like a nightmare in from a regulatory compliance point of view. You could do all the required research that the government wants you to do, and still get personally punished a few decades later if it turns out the product was harmful.
- forgetfreeman 3y ago
  I don't see a problem with new compounds/techniques/technology in general being forced to comprehensively prove it's utility and safety before being put out in the world.
  - gruez 3y ago
    But what counts as "comprehensively"? The whole point here is that 3M got all the regulatory approvals before launching their product, but it turns out it was too little, so we should punish them anyways. If the law isn't comprehensive enough, it should be made comprehensive. We shouldn't be prosecuting people after the fact for complying with all laws at the time, and then it turned out it wasn't comprehensive enough.
    - forgetfreeman 3y ago
      I'd agree with your position if regulatory capture wasn't a thing. It is. Bankrupt literally everyone involved.
      - gruez 3y ago
        In what hypothetical world is there enough corruption/incompetence for regulatory capture to be a problem, yet at the same time there isn't enough corruption/incompetence for arbitrary and retroactive punishments for legal behaviors to be a good idea? Even putting aside the problem of implementation, you also need to consider the second order effects. Specifically, impact on the development of new technologies. Why would anyone want to commercialize any new technology when it can set them up for unlimited personal liability in the future? Remember, the whole point isn't that just the company has to pay for their damages, it's their shareholders and corporate officers will personally held liable for damages as well. How are you going to get innovations in fusion/ai/superconductor when all of them will be subject to the threat of arbitrary and retroactive punishment in the future? For instance, you create an generative art AI startup today. Presently there aren't any regulations, so you do the bare minimum of due diligence. This seems reasonable, given that it's not really like chatgpt so the chance of AI takeover is low. Three decades down the line generative art AI becomes a hit and millions of artists around the world are unemployed. They lobby the government to prosecute you and your shareholders for putting them out of work, arguing that you "CHOSE not do enough research beforehand to be aware of dangers". Does that seem like a fair risk to subject the founders to? Do you think this is a worthwhile trade-off between innovation and conversation?
- superchroma 3y ago
  That's too bad. I'm not sympathetic. The buck has to stop somewhere.
- pseudocomposer 3y ago
  This wouldn’t affect the people who did the research. It would only affect the C levels. C levels at companies this large receive extremely high pay and have relatively little risk associated. This would bring their risk/reward ratio closer (but still nowhere near close) to what 99% of humans have. What exactly is unfair about that? If a C level “finds out” they should have spent more on research because their choices harmed a lot of people, is “learn to live with the assets 90% of humans have” really such an awful, unthinkable consequence?
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  Yes, in my world companies willingly choose to do more than strictly legally required minimum so that they have good evidence that they are good stewards of the environment. If you want to run a business and make billions of dollars, you should be required to do negative harm to the world, and be punished if you attempt to violate that social contract. The onus should ALWAYS be on you PERSONALLY as someone being PERSONALLY enriched by the company you own and or run, to not poison the world. If you are worried that it will eventually come out one of your products is harmful to the environment and yet you've basically dumped it everywhere, maybe do enough diligence to convince yourself that you will be safe, or DO NOT SELL A DANGEROUS OR POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS PRODUCT TO PERSONALLY ENRICH YOURSELF TO THE TUNE OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS Why should businesses exist solely to enrich their owners at the expense of the average human? Doing so should be one of the most heinous crimes.

gruez 3y ago

> What about the owners and C level execs, are they reduced to zero personal assets yet? This infatuation with letting rich companies go with a slap on the wrist because of some "prove willful negligence" is silly. Certain actions, including polluting the entire world, should be proof enough on their own. You shouldn't get away with something just because you CHOSE not do enough research beforehand to be aware of dangers. That seems like a nightmare in from a regulatory compliance point of view. You could do all the required research that the government wants you to do, and still get personally punished a few decades later if it turns out the product was harmful.

forgetfreeman 3y ago
I don't see a problem with new compounds/techniques/technology in general being forced to comprehensively prove it's utility and safety before being put out in the world.
- gruez 3y ago
  But what counts as "comprehensively"? The whole point here is that 3M got all the regulatory approvals before launching their product, but it turns out it was too little, so we should punish them anyways. If the law isn't comprehensive enough, it should be made comprehensive. We shouldn't be prosecuting people after the fact for complying with all laws at the time, and then it turned out it wasn't comprehensive enough.
  - forgetfreeman 3y ago
    I'd agree with your position if regulatory capture wasn't a thing. It is. Bankrupt literally everyone involved.
    - gruez 3y ago
      In what hypothetical world is there enough corruption/incompetence for regulatory capture to be a problem, yet at the same time there isn't enough corruption/incompetence for arbitrary and retroactive punishments for legal behaviors to be a good idea? Even putting aside the problem of implementation, you also need to consider the second order effects. Specifically, impact on the development of new technologies. Why would anyone want to commercialize any new technology when it can set them up for unlimited personal liability in the future? Remember, the whole point isn't that just the company has to pay for their damages, it's their shareholders and corporate officers will personally held liable for damages as well. How are you going to get innovations in fusion/ai/superconductor when all of them will be subject to the threat of arbitrary and retroactive punishment in the future? For instance, you create an generative art AI startup today. Presently there aren't any regulations, so you do the bare minimum of due diligence. This seems reasonable, given that it's not really like chatgpt so the chance of AI takeover is low. Three decades down the line generative art AI becomes a hit and millions of artists around the world are unemployed. They lobby the government to prosecute you and your shareholders for putting them out of work, arguing that you "CHOSE not do enough research beforehand to be aware of dangers". Does that seem like a fair risk to subject the founders to? Do you think this is a worthwhile trade-off between innovation and conversation?
superchroma 3y ago
That's too bad. I'm not sympathetic. The buck has to stop somewhere.
pseudocomposer 3y ago
This wouldn’t affect the people who did the research. It would only affect the C levels. C levels at companies this large receive extremely high pay and have relatively little risk associated. This would bring their risk/reward ratio closer (but still nowhere near close) to what 99% of humans have. What exactly is unfair about that? If a C level “finds out” they should have spent more on research because their choices harmed a lot of people, is “learn to live with the assets 90% of humans have” really such an awful, unthinkable consequence?
mrguyorama 3y ago
Yes, in my world companies willingly choose to do more than strictly legally required minimum so that they have good evidence that they are good stewards of the environment. If you want to run a business and make billions of dollars, you should be required to do negative harm to the world, and be punished if you attempt to violate that social contract. The onus should ALWAYS be on you PERSONALLY as someone being PERSONALLY enriched by the company you own and or run, to not poison the world. If you are worried that it will eventually come out one of your products is harmful to the environment and yet you've basically dumped it everywhere, maybe do enough diligence to convince yourself that you will be safe, or DO NOT SELL A DANGEROUS OR POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS PRODUCT TO PERSONALLY ENRICH YOURSELF TO THE TUNE OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS Why should businesses exist solely to enrich their owners at the expense of the average human? Doing so should be one of the most heinous crimes.