4 ms·

There should be some laws that were broken. Fraud in order to obtain research grants, fraud in order to maintain labs, etc etc.

by voisin 2y ago

delusional 2y ago
In my mind this very much depends on who was tricked here. If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. If it was public money, then it depends more on the nature of the fraud. I could concieve of a circumstance where I would also argue for a lapse in oversight and therefore a sort of "diffusion" of the responsibility. I don't think it's certain that anything illegal happened here. It was certainly wrong, but wrong how?
- wakawaka28 2y ago
  >If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. This is not at all how the law works. You can't fool investors on purpose then shrug it off as "I win, they should have done their due diligence and second-guessed every aspect of my work that I intentionally falsified" lol. What you're arguing for is equivalent to a diffusion of responsibility for accounting fraud, as if the victims deserve it because auditors didn't detect it immediately. I don't know the whole story but deceptive practices (deliberate wrongdoing) need to be punished, if that is what happened here.
  - onemoresoop 2y ago
    That happens all the time in the stock market and rarely anyone gets punished.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      That is explicitly illegal in the stock market, and companies are frequently sued over deceptive practices. They have whole PR departments dedicated to making sure that they convey accurate (or at least defensible) information to investors.
      - onemoresoop 2y ago
        I know it’s illegal but it’s still happening in various ways. Yes, once in a while investors do sue and win
        wakawaka28 2y ago
        Enforcement is a different matter entirely. I was originally responding to an argument about the legality of deception. A lack of enforcement does not make it more defensible.
  - delusional 2y ago
    I should point out that I'm my reply is not interested in what is likely to happen, but rather what I believe should happen. We have plenty of cases where people have in fact been allowed to fool investors without repercussions. Most famously was the recent collapse of we work. There is in general quite a bit of leeway in the private markets to get creative about how you market your financial products. The public market is of course totally different, and that's also what I'm hinting at in my distinction. I don't think it makes sense for a public entity to audit things that the public can't buy. Private financial institutions are (or at least should be) competent to audit their own investments. The general public are not competent to audit their own investments, and even if they were it would be extremely inefficient, so we should probably have some government entity for that.
    - wakawaka28 2y ago
      >We have plenty of cases where people have in fact been allowed to fool investors without repercussions. Most famously was the recent collapse of we work. There is in general quite a bit of leeway in the private markets to get creative about how you market your financial products. WeWork is a strange case because it relied on creating a market for office space, or else taking market share away from other modes of using office space. You can't look at it on the surface and say it's a terrible business model. That means, any claim against them would need to be quantitative in nature. Also, this deception is forward-looking: you can only claim it was wrong after some time has passed. If they falsified their tenancy numbers (past observables) then that would be more damning. >I don't think it makes sense for a public entity to audit things that the public can't buy. Private financial institutions are (or at least should be) competent to audit their own investments. Private investors should audit their own investments, but auditing is not going to succeed when records and research are deliberately falsified. There is no way to put the blame on investors for having been fooled by deliberate deception. >The general public are not competent to audit their own investments, and even if they were it would be extremely inefficient, so we should probably have some government entity for that. The general public generally entrusts its investment funds to people who are supposed to do the due diligence required. This due diligence is undermined by deception. As for the government getting involved, I agree it might need to be involved if the public can directly buy something (although there are some negative outcomes that come with it, such as regulatory capture and suppression of new stuff). The need for oversight applies even more when public money is used to fund research.

There should be some laws that were broken. Fraud in order to obtain research grants, fraud in order to maintain labs, etc etc.

by voisin 2y ago

There should be some laws that were broken. Fraud in order to obtain research grants, fraud in order to maintain labs, etc etc.

delusional 2y ago

In my mind this very much depends on who was tricked here. If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. If it was public money, then it depends more on the nature of the fraud. I could concieve of a circumstance where I would also argue for a lapse in oversight and therefore a sort of "diffusion" of the responsibility. I don't think it's certain that anything illegal happened here. It was certainly wrong, but wrong how?

wakawaka28 2y ago
>If the research was funded by companies, then arguably they should just have better oversight and the loss of their investment is already "punishment" to incentivice that better oversight. This is not at all how the law works. You can't fool investors on purpose then shrug it off as "I win, they should have done their due diligence and second-guessed every aspect of my work that I intentionally falsified" lol. What you're arguing for is equivalent to a diffusion of responsibility for accounting fraud, as if the victims deserve it because auditors didn't detect it immediately. I don't know the whole story but deceptive practices (deliberate wrongdoing) need to be punished, if that is what happened here.
- onemoresoop 2y ago
  That happens all the time in the stock market and rarely anyone gets punished.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    That is explicitly illegal in the stock market, and companies are frequently sued over deceptive practices. They have whole PR departments dedicated to making sure that they convey accurate (or at least defensible) information to investors.
    - onemoresoop 2y ago
      I know it’s illegal but it’s still happening in various ways. Yes, once in a while investors do sue and win
      - wakawaka28 2y ago
        Enforcement is a different matter entirely. I was originally responding to an argument about the legality of deception. A lack of enforcement does not make it more defensible.
- delusional 2y ago
  I should point out that I'm my reply is not interested in what is likely to happen, but rather what I believe should happen. We have plenty of cases where people have in fact been allowed to fool investors without repercussions. Most famously was the recent collapse of we work. There is in general quite a bit of leeway in the private markets to get creative about how you market your financial products. The public market is of course totally different, and that's also what I'm hinting at in my distinction. I don't think it makes sense for a public entity to audit things that the public can't buy. Private financial institutions are (or at least should be) competent to audit their own investments. The general public are not competent to audit their own investments, and even if they were it would be extremely inefficient, so we should probably have some government entity for that.
  - wakawaka28 2y ago
    >We have plenty of cases where people have in fact been allowed to fool investors without repercussions. Most famously was the recent collapse of we work. There is in general quite a bit of leeway in the private markets to get creative about how you market your financial products. WeWork is a strange case because it relied on creating a market for office space, or else taking market share away from other modes of using office space. You can't look at it on the surface and say it's a terrible business model. That means, any claim against them would need to be quantitative in nature. Also, this deception is forward-looking: you can only claim it was wrong after some time has passed. If they falsified their tenancy numbers (past observables) then that would be more damning. >I don't think it makes sense for a public entity to audit things that the public can't buy. Private financial institutions are (or at least should be) competent to audit their own investments. Private investors should audit their own investments, but auditing is not going to succeed when records and research are deliberately falsified. There is no way to put the blame on investors for having been fooled by deliberate deception. >The general public are not competent to audit their own investments, and even if they were it would be extremely inefficient, so we should probably have some government entity for that. The general public generally entrusts its investment funds to people who are supposed to do the due diligence required. This due diligence is undermined by deception. As for the government getting involved, I agree it might need to be involved if the public can directly buy something (although there are some negative outcomes that come with it, such as regulatory capture and suppression of new stuff). The need for oversight applies even more when public money is used to fund research.