3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public • Hacker News Board

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#101

Post by cromulent » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:19 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #44

Waterluvian wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This kind of self regulation can probably work and be cost effective if you ruthlessly destroy any company found in violation rather than some fine and an apology. Reminds me of criminal punishment in medieval times. Incarceration was a complete economic non-start so the penalties were brutal as a deterrent.

Unless you scale fines with income/wealth, fines are just a way of letting the rich do what they please. On the off chance they're caught - and don't get let off the hook because of how 'respectable' they are - it's so little money to them, it's not a discouragement at all. A fine for dangerous driving that is crushing to a day laborer is unnoticeable to someone wealthy. And whereas that laborer, to challenge a ticke…

That’s why Finland has “day fines” - after a threshold, fines are x days of your last years income. 5 or 6 figure fines are not uncommon.

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#102

Post by wizzwizz4 » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:20 PM UTC

14 wrote: post #68

mrweasel wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Death sentence is probably a bit much, but if management takes actions that they know will kill or maim I don't see a reason why punishment shouldn't be the same as if you went out and hit someone with a hammer. In this case, force 3M to pay for everything, if they refuse or can't the government sells of the company to pay for the cost. I'm not a fan of the death sentence, but I have no problem killing of evil compan…

I have to disagree if someone knowingly poisoned my baby then if death penalty isn’t imposed I’m going to attempt to get revenge myself. The death penalty was probably effective at calming the entire country from rage.

I think, as a general principle, justice should not be based around appeasing a potential lynch mob.

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#103

Post by code_duck » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:21 PM UTC

ponector wrote: post #43

toomuchtodo wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eddie Izzard has a great skit about mass murderers that I think of when this topic is discussed. We as a society know (or rather, have ideas on) how to handle people who kill 1-20 people just fine, but above that (hundreds of thousands or millions of people), we’re at a loss. “Well done, you must get up very early in the morning.” Feels very similar to these cases where people in positions of power cause enormous agg…

There is a saying in my country: if you steal a phone - you go to jail. If you steal a factory or powerplant - you go to the parliament.

Reminds me of a saying in the US, “The best way to rob a bank is to own one”.

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#104

Post by devilbunny » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:21 PM UTC

Hackbraten wrote: post #79

lupusreal wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least six babies were killed; that's mass murder. It was done in cold blood, planned out ahead of time. The death penalty was the only fitting sentence.

The death penalty is never a fitting sentence. Prosecutors and judges can make mistakes. Executing someone is something you can never undo.

There are plenty of crimes that deserve death. We don’t impose it because we’re unsure about culpability. But if you did it, you do indeed deserve to die.

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#105

Post by kortilla » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:21 PM UTC

ddol wrote: post #89

oakwhiz wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a gift to short sellers.

Nationalising the corporation would delist it from an exchange, preventing stock sales.

Meaning short sellers never have to buy it back.

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#106

Post by forgetfreeman » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:21 PM UTC

acdha wrote: post #5

I increasingly think we need personal criminal liability for everyone in the management chain before this will end. As long as you can cash out your options before the reckoning, maybe even spin a division out to go bankrupt, there are just too many people who’ll chase the larger number. You need the guy who gets that internal memo to think that if he doesn’t report it to the EPA, he’ll spend the rest of his life won…

Investors as well.

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#107

Post by ejb999 » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:22 PM UTC

KennyBlanken wrote: post #30

monkburger wrote: post #3

This is what happens when the EPA's rules state chemical companies, can more or less, police themselves. We've detected PFOAs in rainwater/clouds, in the artic, etc (See https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.2c02765 ) They are going to lead to further health problems down the road.

This is a huge problem across the board; industry and congress have been steadily stripping federal agencies of staff/budget, authority, etc. Congress long figured out how to kill off regulation that is publicly popular: strangle the agency budget-wise, not appoint new department leaders, etc. Adding ever-increasing paperwork is also popular. OSHA has the lowest number of inspectors in ~45 years. The agency is about…

OSHA may have the lowest # of inspectors in ~45 years, but the rate of worker deaths is also at just about its lowest over that same time period - so not sure the # of inspectors is really relevant.

More is not always better.

Worker deaths in America are down—on average, from about 38 worker deaths a day in 1970 to 13 a day in 2020.

Worker injuries and illnesses are down—from 10.9 incidents per 100 workers in 1972 to 2.7 per 100 in 2020.

Source: https://www.osha.gov/data/commonstats

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#108

Post by hcurtiss » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:22 PM UTC

Purdy was improperly conflating their ability to detect the substance with "harm," and the environmental propagandists have been running with it for a long time. What "harm" precisely did he identify? The article doesn't say. Maybe a carcinogen? Maybe not? There's been a concerted effort to make PFOS/PFAS an environmental super-villain, but it's hard to substantiate when we volitionally ingest many flourinated pharmaceuticals daily (e.g., Cipro, Prozac, Flonaze, Pavloxid, etc.). It's been amusing watching the alarmist "science" press floundering with the "right" definition of PFAS that lets you hang 3M but still keep the life-changing drugs that require them. https://www.bu.edu/sph/news/articles/2022/is-there-a-right-d...

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#109

Post by kortilla » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:22 PM UTC

oakwhiz wrote: post #61

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read once about a corporate death penalty that I think should really be made into law: where a corporate entity commits something so heinous that a fine or what have you is simply not enough. I cannot find the link but the process would go about such as: - The entire entity would be taken on ownership by the government agency at play. No existing stakeholders would be paid anything for this and operations would con…

Sounds like a gift to short sellers.

It should be. The entire job of short sellers is to be incentivized to ferret out bad companies.

Re: 3M knew its chemicals were harmful decades ago, but didn't tell the public

#110

Post by colonCapitalDee » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:23 PM UTC

mathgradthrow wrote: post #35

acdha wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I’m generally opposed to the death penalty on the grounds of not being able to undo mistakes but if we’re going to have it on the books, I’d have a hard time saying that shouldn’t be an option. We’ve charged plenty of people for killing a single person, and the numbers for food safety can be a lot more than that.

The death penalty only makes sense for white collar crime, and it makes a lot of sense in this setting. Theres very little you can do to disincentivize people from engaging in crimes of irrationality or desperation, but I think if you threaten someone who is well off already with death for stealing, or failing to report accurately to the EPA/FDA etc. The number of cases will rapidly go to zero.

That's barbaric. White collar crime is a policy choice. Economies require a certain amount of slack in order to function. If an economy had a zero tolerance policy for white collar crime than nothing would ever get done, because differentiating between fraud, incompetence, and bad luck is extremely difficult in all but the most straightforward of cases. If we wanted to de-incentivize white collar crime we have so many options that are (a) more humane, (b) more effective, and (c) less controversial. We could start prosecuting more cases of fraud, or improve regulations, or increase incentives for whisteblowing, or reform corporate governance, or any of a million other ideas.