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I think this takes the cake for worst opinions I've read on HN. You're really suggesting criminals should go free as long as we cap their maximum income? Real

I think this takes the cake for worst opinions I've read on HN. You're really suggesting criminals should go free as long as we cap their maximum income? Really?

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
acdha 3y ago
> You're really suggesting criminals should go free as long as we cap their maximum income? Not free but under some kind of program where they’re allowed to stay out of prison in some kind of supervised program. These guys were greedy, not axe murderers, and I don’t think there’s much public risk as long as they’re no longer in a position where they can make decisions which affect other people’s health again. I know it can feel satisfying to light the torches and demand vengeance – it’s a primal emotional reaction – but I don’t think it’s going to do anything. I doubt these guys are going to have evidence of intention to deliberately poison anyone, and I doubt that paying to keep them in jail is going to have more positive outcome than being allowed to stay out of jail so they can make restitution payments.
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  > These guys were greedy, not axe murderers These guys did a lot more damage than any axe murderer ever did. Lining them up against the wall would do a lot to deter other CEOs from cutting corners in this way.
  - acdha 3y ago
    Sure, and if evidence turns up that they consciously chose to put lead into food they might even face serious charges but I sudd as kept this will turn out to be more along the lines of not doing enough to figure out why their cinnamon supplier could be so cheap or doing less testing because they hadn’t seen any problems so far. Once you’re at that level you’re going to need a lot of firing squads…
- malfist 3y ago
  > These guys were greedy, not axe murderers What if the axe murderer was after their wallet? That would put them in the same category as your sainted "job creators"
  - acdha 3y ago
    > That would put them in the same category as your sainted "job creators" You have badly misunderstood my point. I’m not saying they should be tolerated to protect jobs, only that someone who is not uncontrollably dangerous to the people around them can probably serve society better than as an ongoing $100k/year cost.
    - malfist 3y ago
      You're making an invalid distinction between axe murderers and people that will poison children to make a buck. They are both "uncontrollably dangerous"
      - acdha 3y ago
        That’s only invalid because it’s incorrectly characterizing my position. Yes, anyone who intentionally poisons a child is a risk but in this case it’s orders of magnitude more likely that these guys bought something because it was cheap and didn’t test it carefully enough, verify that certifications about safety were legitimate, etc. and that starts getting into more systemic questions – do our laws actually require them to do anything which they didn’t? – and relative risk comparisons. For example, the most popular vehicles sold in the United States are designed to cause more collisions and more serious injuries or deaths in each collision, which add up to far more children being harmed every year than this horrible food safety failure. I have a hard time saying it makes sense to have a standard here which says we should jail the CEO of this company but not those of the SUV manufacturers.

I think this takes the cake for worst opinions I've read on HN. You're really suggesting criminals should go free as long as we cap their maximum income? Really?

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

acdha 3y ago

> You're really suggesting criminals should go free as long as we cap their maximum income? Not free but under some kind of program where they’re allowed to stay out of prison in some kind of supervised program. These guys were greedy, not axe murderers, and I don’t think there’s much public risk as long as they’re no longer in a position where they can make decisions which affect other people’s health again. I know it can feel satisfying to light the torches and demand vengeance – it’s a primal emotional reaction – but I don’t think it’s going to do anything. I doubt these guys are going to have evidence of intention to deliberately poison anyone, and I doubt that paying to keep them in jail is going to have more positive outcome than being allowed to stay out of jail so they can make restitution payments.

NoGravitas 3y ago
> These guys were greedy, not axe murderers These guys did a lot more damage than any axe murderer ever did. Lining them up against the wall would do a lot to deter other CEOs from cutting corners in this way.
- acdha 3y ago
  Sure, and if evidence turns up that they consciously chose to put lead into food they might even face serious charges but I sudd as kept this will turn out to be more along the lines of not doing enough to figure out why their cinnamon supplier could be so cheap or doing less testing because they hadn’t seen any problems so far. Once you’re at that level you’re going to need a lot of firing squads…
malfist 3y ago
> These guys were greedy, not axe murderers What if the axe murderer was after their wallet? That would put them in the same category as your sainted "job creators"
- acdha 3y ago
  > That would put them in the same category as your sainted "job creators" You have badly misunderstood my point. I’m not saying they should be tolerated to protect jobs, only that someone who is not uncontrollably dangerous to the people around them can probably serve society better than as an ongoing $100k/year cost.
  - malfist 3y ago
    You're making an invalid distinction between axe murderers and people that will poison children to make a buck. They are both "uncontrollably dangerous"
    - acdha 3y ago
      That’s only invalid because it’s incorrectly characterizing my position. Yes, anyone who intentionally poisons a child is a risk but in this case it’s orders of magnitude more likely that these guys bought something because it was cheap and didn’t test it carefully enough, verify that certifications about safety were legitimate, etc. and that starts getting into more systemic questions – do our laws actually require them to do anything which they didn’t? – and relative risk comparisons. For example, the most popular vehicles sold in the United States are designed to cause more collisions and more serious injuries or deaths in each collision, which add up to far more children being harmed every year than this horrible food safety failure. I have a hard time saying it makes sense to have a standard here which says we should jail the CEO of this company but not those of the SUV manufacturers.