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> On one hand I don't think you can apply a price to a human life, but on the other 329 million feels too high, (...) Let me stop you right there. That's not h

> On one hand I don't think you can apply a price to a human life, but on the other 329 million feels too high, (...) Let me stop you right there. That's not how damages work. Damages have two goals: compensate victims, and dissuade offenders from repeating the same mistakes. The latter involves punishments that discourage repeat offenses. That's where these high values come from. They are intended to force the likes of Tesla to not ignore the lives they are ending due to their failures. If damages were low, the likes of Tesla would do absolutely nothing and absorb them as operational expenses, and continue to cause deaths claiming they are unavoidable. Once the likes of Tesla are forced to pay significant volumes of cash in damages, they suddenly find motives to take their design problems seriously.

lblume 1y ago
I tend to agree, however the government is not an unincentivized incentivizer. By being able to impose such fines, the government is potentially itself incentivized to not prevent these accidents for they potentially cause this kind of revenue. There are ways to mitigate this, such as forcing the government to use these revenues in a way that is relevant to the issue at hand, i.e. creating safety jobs, strengthening control authorities, or something else. You could also say that the amount is insignificant, but that could of course change with every lawsuit, and it of course accumulates. Or one could speculate that the interests are not really monetarily aligned at all (e.g. prisons), or that the judicial system is independent enough to stop propagation of these incentives. I think it is still needed to consider and try to controlledly align these motives between the relevant actors.
- gamblor956 1y ago
  The government does not receive any portion of this damage award. There is no incentive for them here.
Dylan16807 1y ago
> Damages have two goals: compensate victims, and dissuade offenders Let me stop you right there. Just the compensatory damages were 129 million. And most of that was charged to the driver, no corporate boost there.

lblume 1y ago

I tend to agree, however the government is not an unincentivized incentivizer. By being able to impose such fines, the government is potentially itself incentivized to not prevent these accidents for they potentially cause this kind of revenue. There are ways to mitigate this, such as forcing the government to use these revenues in a way that is relevant to the issue at hand, i.e. creating safety jobs, strengthening control authorities, or something else. You could also say that the amount is insignificant, but that could of course change with every lawsuit, and it of course accumulates. Or one could speculate that the interests are not really monetarily aligned at all (e.g. prisons), or that the judicial system is independent enough to stop propagation of these incentives. I think it is still needed to consider and try to controlledly align these motives between the relevant actors.

gamblor956 1y ago
The government does not receive any portion of this damage award. There is no incentive for them here.

Dylan16807 1y ago

> Damages have two goals: compensate victims, and dissuade offenders Let me stop you right there. Just the compensatory damages were 129 million. And most of that was charged to the driver, no corporate boost there.