201–210 of 255 posts
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Reforming how class actions are done is probably a very good idea. But Bayer has a market capitalization of over 45 billion. This judgement will probably get appealed and negotiated down. And if it isn't, there is a lot of value in Bayer to pay out in a class action if one succeeds.
Monsanto is the main culprit here. I don’t know how they convinced Bayer to buy them and tale on this albatross.
Bayer buys US government owned Monsanto. Did they not know what the deal entailed? Did they think that owning the world's food production was worth the risk of constant judical trials?
332M USD isn't that much considering how much controlling most of the global crop patents and pesticides to go along is worth IMHO.
But then again, why did the US government get rid of it? To avert a much larger trial?
I guess it's more mysterious than funny.
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What do you mean by "corrected for the land area"? According to this study, in the period 2016-2020 wheat yields per acre were more than twice as high in Germany than in North Dakota or Kansas. https://ag.purdue.edu/commercialag/home/resource/2022/05/int...
North Dakota and Kansas are deserts or near desert. Germany gets 2 to 7 times more rain per year (depending on which part of Germany you look at)
According to data from the UN, in 2020 North America used 2.77 kg pesticiedes per hectare cropland and Europe used 1.69 kg/ha, and yet Europe has higher yields per hectare. So clearly Europe uses less pesticedes per produced amount of food.
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Roundup isn't a pesticide, or an insecticide (as the charts above are labeled). Roundup is an herbicide, which is why it is so useful to combine with GMO crops. When you spray a field for weeds with Roundup, your crop doesn’t die because it has resistance built in. More clearly, Roundup kills weeds, not bugs.
> Roundup isn't a pesticide, or an insecticide (as the charts above are labeled). Roundup is an herbicide Pesticide is an umbrella term for herbicides, insecticides, and other types of substances. If you've read the paper, it mentions that too: > Pesticides are substances used to repel, kill, or control animals (insecticides) or plants (herbicides) that are considered to be pests. You are correct, though, in that whi…
The judgment was based on failure to warn of risk, not negligence in design. On causation, as far as I can tell, the 2015 finding of epidemiological evidence for a 41% increase in non-hodgkins lymphoma (NHL) was rebutted by non-affiliated researchers, but paid experts are continuing to publish, and claim others have recently found a mechanism. But AFAIK there's no epidemiological or mechanistic proof, now or at the t…
I'm surprised these judgements are happening. The science isn't really nailed down.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by "corrected for the land area"? According to this study, in the period 2016-2020 wheat yields per acre were more than twice as high in Germany than in North Dakota or Kansas. https://ag.purdue.edu/commercialag/home/resource/2022/05/int...
North Dakota and Kansas are deserts or near desert. Germany gets 2 to 7 times more rain per year (depending on which part of Germany you look at)
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If by "reform" you mean weaken class actions, I would argue that is a bad idea. Larger businesses have already gone to great lengths to eliminate / curtail class actions. I'd argue that this weakening is the root cause of a chunk of the aggregate problems I see discussed on HN. It is in a company's interest to harm a great many people a little bit because the people often have to challenge the company as individuals…
Businesses aren't trying to harm. They aren't a Mao or a Stalin just going for The Greater Good no matter how many people they have to kill. They're trying to make a profit, and sometimes horribly unethical people in those businesses will not care about harm in order to make a profit. But the goal isn't harm.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Reforming how class actions are done is probably a very good idea. But Bayer has a market capitalization of over 45 billion. This judgement will probably get appealed and negotiated down. And if it isn't, there is a lot of value in Bayer to pay out in a class action if one succeeds.
Monsanto is the main culprit here. I don’t know how they convinced Bayer to buy them and tale on this albatross.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Although we have seen very frequently that pesticides still affect some humans or animals. At this point, shouldn't we just reduce the possible points of failures instead of hoping the next miracle molecule doesn't kill us all twenty years later?
Very frequently? These chemicals are benign and the media and activists have been scaring people for decades without justification. The fact that their arguments are often convolved with arguments against lawns and lawncare should give you a better sense of their true motives. I'm shocked Bayer lost and that the plaintiff was awarded anything. Glyphosate has not been shown to cause cancer. If it had, such literature…
Sure they are.
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To be clear, I was not suggesting the intent was harm for harm's sake. I was suggesting that it was in the company's/businesses' interest to harm. I agree that, often, that interest is framed as making profit, but it can also be framed as reducing cost, not having to care, etc. The bigger point is that such an incentive exists and that it is further incentivized if the individuals who are harmed are deprived of a mec…
> framed as making profit, but it can also be framed as reducing cost Reducing cost does increase profit. Profit is (basically) revenue minus cost. > The bigger point is that such an incentive exists and that it is further incentivized if the individuals who are harmed are deprived of a mechanism to resist. Of course. Russia is invading Ukraine right now, as causing harm can benefit you, if you don't care about harm.…