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I’m more worried about the fact that it was allowed for so long. Sure, we’re doing the right thing by quitting PFAS and starting major cleanup efforts. But the

I’m more worried about the fact that it was allowed for so long. Sure, we’re doing the right thing by quitting PFAS and starting major cleanup efforts. But the system existed where people were incredibly negligent for years, knew they were hurting people, made boatloads of money, and retired. That same system exists in many oil-and-gas industries, drug marketing, and more. There are dozens of examples where this has happened in recent years, and that’s just the ones at large enough scale to be prosecuted. It’s still happening to this day. How do we start treating intentional negligence that leads to mass suffering and death as seriously as murder? It is individuals making these decisions, and they need to be held personally liable. The corporate veil is useful, and shouldn’t go away completely. But when an individual makes a decision that had a high probability of doing major harm, they should at least stop and raise the issue to a government agency, to limit their liability. If they do not take appropriate precautions, like getting explicit approval from government authorities, then they should be personally liable for the negligence.

Y_Y 2y ago
Is there a told-you-so list somewhere that catalogues these ongoing negligences? I'd love to see a comprehensive of the things that are known now, but not well-known yet.
- sokoloff 2y ago
  I suspect we're going to find plenty of food items to put on this list. Are we planning to jail or bankrupt the peddlers of sugar water? Sugar itself? Refined flour? Non-nutritive sweeteners? Fast food? Fast casual? Buffets? Potato chips? Chocolate? Beer? Wine? (Stop me when we get to some pseudo-vice that you sometimes enjoy.) At some point, I think you have to say "society decided at the time that selling Coke, Pepsi, fast food, potato chips, and wine was okay, and the people who sold that aren't subject to retroactive punishments for selling something that we pretty much knew was damaging to health of millions of people, but they chose to eat it anyway..."
Buttons840 2y ago
> But the system existed where people were incredibly negligent for years, knew they were hurting people, made boatloads of money, and retired.... It is individuals making these decisions, and they need to be held personally liable. Maybe people who have more than, say, 20 million dollars should be personally liable. This seems like a very conservative middle ground, because, as you say, these people have sometimes knowingly made decisions they knew would result in deaths. Taking away only some of their money is the least of punishments, and they would still be left rich and very comfortable. This should apply to almost anyone. I get that regular people deserve some protection from liability for just doing their job, but at some point society is paying you so much money that you owe us a little personal responsibility in return. Maybe it could be structured such that when a company is sued and loses, the company can then sue past employees who made the wrong decisions. Again, this liability would not be able to reduce an individual's wealth to less than 20 million, so employees don't have to worry about being completely ruined, but people shouldn't be able to control society warping amounts of wealth when the source of that wealth was incorrect and possibly corrupt decisions. Let's try including some responsibility with the merit.
- ivan_gammel 2y ago
  Corporate negligence that results in significant damage to environment or public health must be criminalized with most severe punishment going to higher level decision makers, including some accountability for their superiors. If CEO knew and acted against public interests, then Board must be held accountable. If board knew and acted against public interests, then majority shareholders who voted for this board must be at least fined.
  - Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
    Not just that the CEO or board "knew" because that is a hard thing to prove. Better to have it be "reasonably should have known". If this is a thing that the company is doing and has been doing for a long time then the senior managers should know about it and are therefore liable and responsible. Such a rule would also incentivize managers from 'looking the other way' at wrong-doing because the saying 'I didn't know' won't matter.
whall6 2y ago
Can you explain how this is analogous to oil and gas? Not sure I am there.
- digdugdirk 2y ago
  Oil and gas companies knew that their product would cause large scale global climate impacts half a century ago. They suppressed that information, and then proceeded to go the extra step and create the current "climate change isn't real" worldview through a carefully planned and executed influence campaign. It's a remarkably effective strategy that appears all over different industries, including tech. Keep an eye out for large political battles, and wishy-washy scientific studies funded by the industry that profits off the issue at hand.
  - mikeiz404 2y ago
    If someone is looking for sources, this article goes into great detail though it is extremely long but worth the read. Other publications have posted similar stories. https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful-parkersburg/ https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-b... Ground water and soil contamination is just one source of exposure. EWG has created an interactive map of the US which tracks this. https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
  - fallingknife 2y ago
    Other people besides oil companies knew 50 years ago too, so this is hardly relevant. Nothing would have changed if they had made this public. Hell, we all know now and still aren't doing much. This whole conspiracy theory is just cope from people who won't admit that it is us and our oil consumption that is the problem and the companies are just there to give us what we want.
    - int_19h 2y ago
      We aren't doing nearly as much as we should be, but we're certainly doing something - and at time spans like 50 years, said "something" can compound quite significantly. Even if we've ultimately had the same discussion about climate that we ended up having today, but several decades earlier, that would already be a fairly big improvement in the current state of affairs. You also completely ignore the other, and arguably more important, part where those companies didn't just bury the research - no, they knowingly developed highly effective agitprop, often intentionally disguised as science, to blunt the public reaction when the story eventually broke for the general public. They have straight up bought politicians to peddle said agitprop, too.
dec0dedab0de 2y ago
* How do we start treating intentional negligence that leads to mass suffering and death as seriously as murder?* I think a combustion of very public corporal and capital punishment is the only answer here.
- dec0dedab0de 2y ago
  combination*
  - sofixa 2y ago
    No, no, combustion works very well too. If Dave Calhoun legitimately feared he'd be set on fire in public, he'd probably actually pay attention to the shit he's creating instead of being sure that worst case scenario he'd retire with a few tens of millions of USD more.
mattmaroon 2y ago
There is not strong evidence that the levels of PFAs most people are exposed to cause any health issues at all. It is, of course, concerning. Nobody likes the idea of materials building up in their bodies. But we can't say they knew they were hurting many people, because we still don't.
- akaru 2y ago
  Yet a drug—that people willingly and optionally take as opposed to this—must be proven NOT to create harm before it is allowed in the wild. Your argument sounds like it is in bad faith.
  - JumpCrisscross 2y ago
    > must be proven NOT to create harm before it is allowed in the wild This isn’t how we regulate chemicals in America. Perhaps it should be.
    - hyperdimension 2y ago
      I think that that was the implication. We should elevate the standard for new chemicals that might enter our body through the environment to a similar standard we already have for drugs (chemicals we deliberately put into our body.)
    - rayiner 2y ago
      To my knowledge, that’s not how we regulate industrial chemicals anywhere. I agree it probably should be. Those chemists are witch doctors.
    - lazide 2y ago
      I’m not sure how that is even possible, frankly. What sort of test suite would THAT look like?
  - mattmaroon 2y ago
    You are conflating very different things. Go into any Whole Foods and there is an entire aisle of pills that are not proven to not create harm, in fact, some of them most certainly do. Pharmaceuticals play by a different set of rules than other chemicals because humans are particularly gullible when it comes to health claims. "Snake oil salesman" is a common term for a reason. We don't let big pharma make certain claims without ample test data for a whole host of obvious reasons. In this context we were talking about punishing people for "harming" without having proven that they've really harmed at all. This would be more like locking up all the Chinese restaurant owners for using MSG. Your argument sounds like it is in bad logic.
pengaru 2y ago
"land of opportunity"
calibas 2y ago
When the food industry intentionally sabotages health and nutrition science for their own gain, they should be liable. Their actions are responsible for the early deaths and sicknesses of millions of people. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...
rayiner 2y ago
Do PFAS kill people?
londons_explore 2y ago
I think the key thing is people doing things that aren't yet illegal, but probably should be. I think we should simply backdate fines and punishments in this case. Ie. if you were doing something harmful to people or the environment but it was technically legal to do at the time you did it, you should still get punished (although a smaller punishment, especially if you can reasonably argue you didn't know).
- YawningAngel 2y ago
  In the US, this is constitutionally forbidden.
  - londons_explore 2y ago
    Yet harming people is still illegal. So the deal could be "We're gonna fine you $$$ instead of prosecuting you for Poisoning. Penal Code 347(a)(1)."
- pirate787 2y ago
  This is dystopian. The better approach is the "precautionary principle" which requires owners of new tech or chemicals prove they are safe before use
- fallingknife 2y ago
  And after we implement that we can start arresting people for precrime!
lostlogin 2y ago
> they should at least stop and raise the issue to a government agency, to limit their liability. Many countries have a revolving door between industry and government oversight. New Zealand consistently scores well, having low corruption. Currently we have a government that has a very interesting relationship with the tobacco industry, with freight/roading, gambling and with horse and dog racing. I’m sure there are many more.

Y_Y 2y ago

Is there a told-you-so list somewhere that catalogues these ongoing negligences? I'd love to see a comprehensive of the things that are known now, but not well-known yet.

sokoloff 2y ago
I suspect we're going to find plenty of food items to put on this list. Are we planning to jail or bankrupt the peddlers of sugar water? Sugar itself? Refined flour? Non-nutritive sweeteners? Fast food? Fast casual? Buffets? Potato chips? Chocolate? Beer? Wine? (Stop me when we get to some pseudo-vice that you sometimes enjoy.) At some point, I think you have to say "society decided at the time that selling Coke, Pepsi, fast food, potato chips, and wine was okay, and the people who sold that aren't subject to retroactive punishments for selling something that we pretty much knew was damaging to health of millions of people, but they chose to eat it anyway..."

Buttons840 2y ago

> But the system existed where people were incredibly negligent for years, knew they were hurting people, made boatloads of money, and retired.... It is individuals making these decisions, and they need to be held personally liable. Maybe people who have more than, say, 20 million dollars should be personally liable. This seems like a very conservative middle ground, because, as you say, these people have sometimes knowingly made decisions they knew would result in deaths. Taking away only some of their money is the least of punishments, and they would still be left rich and very comfortable. This should apply to almost anyone. I get that regular people deserve some protection from liability for just doing their job, but at some point society is paying you so much money that you owe us a little personal responsibility in return. Maybe it could be structured such that when a company is sued and loses, the company can then sue past employees who made the wrong decisions. Again, this liability would not be able to reduce an individual's wealth to less than 20 million, so employees don't have to worry about being completely ruined, but people shouldn't be able to control society warping amounts of wealth when the source of that wealth was incorrect and possibly corrupt decisions. Let's try including some responsibility with the merit.

ivan_gammel 2y ago
Corporate negligence that results in significant damage to environment or public health must be criminalized with most severe punishment going to higher level decision makers, including some accountability for their superiors. If CEO knew and acted against public interests, then Board must be held accountable. If board knew and acted against public interests, then majority shareholders who voted for this board must be at least fined.
- Eddy_Viscosity2 2y ago
  Not just that the CEO or board "knew" because that is a hard thing to prove. Better to have it be "reasonably should have known". If this is a thing that the company is doing and has been doing for a long time then the senior managers should know about it and are therefore liable and responsible. Such a rule would also incentivize managers from 'looking the other way' at wrong-doing because the saying 'I didn't know' won't matter.

whall6 2y ago

Can you explain how this is analogous to oil and gas? Not sure I am there.

digdugdirk 2y ago
Oil and gas companies knew that their product would cause large scale global climate impacts half a century ago. They suppressed that information, and then proceeded to go the extra step and create the current "climate change isn't real" worldview through a carefully planned and executed influence campaign. It's a remarkably effective strategy that appears all over different industries, including tech. Keep an eye out for large political battles, and wishy-washy scientific studies funded by the industry that profits off the issue at hand.
- mikeiz404 2y ago
  If someone is looking for sources, this article goes into great detail though it is extremely long but worth the read. Other publications have posted similar stories. https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-beautiful-parkersburg/ https://highline.huffingtonpost.com/articles/en/welcome-to-b... Ground water and soil contamination is just one source of exposure. EWG has created an interactive map of the US which tracks this. https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/ https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/map/
- fallingknife 2y ago
  Other people besides oil companies knew 50 years ago too, so this is hardly relevant. Nothing would have changed if they had made this public. Hell, we all know now and still aren't doing much. This whole conspiracy theory is just cope from people who won't admit that it is us and our oil consumption that is the problem and the companies are just there to give us what we want.
  - int_19h 2y ago
    We aren't doing nearly as much as we should be, but we're certainly doing something - and at time spans like 50 years, said "something" can compound quite significantly. Even if we've ultimately had the same discussion about climate that we ended up having today, but several decades earlier, that would already be a fairly big improvement in the current state of affairs. You also completely ignore the other, and arguably more important, part where those companies didn't just bury the research - no, they knowingly developed highly effective agitprop, often intentionally disguised as science, to blunt the public reaction when the story eventually broke for the general public. They have straight up bought politicians to peddle said agitprop, too.

dec0dedab0de 2y ago

* How do we start treating intentional negligence that leads to mass suffering and death as seriously as murder?* I think a combustion of very public corporal and capital punishment is the only answer here.

dec0dedab0de 2y ago
combination*
- sofixa 2y ago
  No, no, combustion works very well too. If Dave Calhoun legitimately feared he'd be set on fire in public, he'd probably actually pay attention to the shit he's creating instead of being sure that worst case scenario he'd retire with a few tens of millions of USD more.

mattmaroon 2y ago

There is not strong evidence that the levels of PFAs most people are exposed to cause any health issues at all. It is, of course, concerning. Nobody likes the idea of materials building up in their bodies. But we can't say they knew they were hurting many people, because we still don't.

akaru 2y ago
Yet a drug—that people willingly and optionally take as opposed to this—must be proven NOT to create harm before it is allowed in the wild. Your argument sounds like it is in bad faith.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > must be proven NOT to create harm before it is allowed in the wild This isn’t how we regulate chemicals in America. Perhaps it should be.
  - hyperdimension 2y ago
    I think that that was the implication. We should elevate the standard for new chemicals that might enter our body through the environment to a similar standard we already have for drugs (chemicals we deliberately put into our body.)
  - rayiner 2y ago
    To my knowledge, that’s not how we regulate industrial chemicals anywhere. I agree it probably should be. Those chemists are witch doctors.
  - lazide 2y ago
    I’m not sure how that is even possible, frankly. What sort of test suite would THAT look like?
- mattmaroon 2y ago
  You are conflating very different things. Go into any Whole Foods and there is an entire aisle of pills that are not proven to not create harm, in fact, some of them most certainly do. Pharmaceuticals play by a different set of rules than other chemicals because humans are particularly gullible when it comes to health claims. "Snake oil salesman" is a common term for a reason. We don't let big pharma make certain claims without ample test data for a whole host of obvious reasons. In this context we were talking about punishing people for "harming" without having proven that they've really harmed at all. This would be more like locking up all the Chinese restaurant owners for using MSG. Your argument sounds like it is in bad logic.

pengaru 2y ago

"land of opportunity"

calibas 2y ago

When the food industry intentionally sabotages health and nutrition science for their own gain, they should be liable. Their actions are responsible for the early deaths and sicknesses of millions of people. https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074/50-years-ago-sugar-industry-quietly-paid-scientists-to-point-blame-at-fat https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/09/13/493739074...

rayiner 2y ago

Do PFAS kill people?

londons_explore 2y ago

I think the key thing is people doing things that aren't yet illegal, but probably should be. I think we should simply backdate fines and punishments in this case. Ie. if you were doing something harmful to people or the environment but it was technically legal to do at the time you did it, you should still get punished (although a smaller punishment, especially if you can reasonably argue you didn't know).

YawningAngel 2y ago
In the US, this is constitutionally forbidden.
- londons_explore 2y ago
  Yet harming people is still illegal. So the deal could be "We're gonna fine you $$$ instead of prosecuting you for Poisoning. Penal Code 347(a)(1)."
pirate787 2y ago
This is dystopian. The better approach is the "precautionary principle" which requires owners of new tech or chemicals prove they are safe before use
fallingknife 2y ago
And after we implement that we can start arresting people for precrime!

lostlogin 2y ago

> they should at least stop and raise the issue to a government agency, to limit their liability. Many countries have a revolving door between industry and government oversight. New Zealand consistently scores well, having low corruption. Currently we have a government that has a very interesting relationship with the tobacco industry, with freight/roading, gambling and with horse and dog racing. I’m sure there are many more.