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

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

#141

Post by ekianjo »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #48
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 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…

> The entire entity would be taken on ownership by the government agency

We should not trust government agencies as they have zero accountability either. It is even worse.

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

#142

Post by akokanka »

mrweasel wrote: post #31
toomuchtodo wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In China, there was a case of baby formula execs (Edit: pointed out to me further down thread that the execs were only jailed for 5-15 years with Sanlu's general manager receiving a life sentence, and the people executed very those directly responsible for tainting the product mentioned) knowingly selling product that was harmful and led to tens of thousands of hospitalizations and a handful of deaths. They were exec…

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…

[flagged]

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

#143

Post by hh3k0 »

userbinator wrote: post #80

I'm going to be the controversial one here and point out that despite saying they're "harmful", they've been everywhere for all these decades that a lot of other measures of quality of life have been increasing? From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perfluorooctanoic_acid#Global_... there is this interesting quote: Most industrialized nations have average PFOA blood serum levels ranging from 2 to 8 parts per billion;[57…

> despite saying they're "harmful", they've been everywhere for all these decades that a lot of other measures of quality of life have been increasing?

Might be unrelated (or not), but cancer rates have been exploding the last decades. Example via Google-Fu:

> Cancer cases in under-50s worldwide up nearly 80% in three decades, study finds

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/sep/05/cancer-cases...

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

#144

Post by ekianjo »

nier wrote: post #52
aaomidi wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think death sentence is actually a bit much here. Im generally against death sentences for heat of the moment situations. Think: murder. But in a situation where you’ve had legal teams working with you, where you’ve been planning this out, and where you know what the damage to this is etc., you’re basically a massive threat to society. The active planning, intent, and maliciousness is something that should be…

For me, the death penalty contains traces of mercy and life-long incarceration does not. You take away someone’s freedom for the rest of their life instead of putting them out of their misery.

> life-long incarceration does not

There is no such thing as life long incarceration. They always get out early

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

#145

Post by arrosenberg »

mcny wrote: post #75
nier wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me, the death penalty contains traces of mercy and life-long incarceration does not. You take away someone’s freedom for the rest of their life instead of putting them out of their misery.

I agree with you on death penalty but the parent also says removal of all assets. So I think life in prison with no possibility of parole plus removal of all assets is ideal. But I think this should only apply to the CEO and the board not everyone up and down the chain at least in the US where we have a “right to work”. I don’t know if the law will allow an effective removal of all assets. I’m thinking of trust fund…

> I don’t know if the law will allow an effective removal of all assets. I’m thinking of trust fund babies and such…

Civil asset forfeiture. The money itself is complicit in the criminal act.

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

#146

Post by wizzwizz4 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #125
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

There's lynch mob, and then there's righteous rage at acts so heinous that lack of punishment would call into question the legitimacy of the entire social structure. This may be something that doesn't resonate with people who are not parents, but: if your government is willing to tolerate intentional, casual murder of children at scale, what's the point of having it in the first place? And let's remember: a governmen…

I don't think that's restricted to parents: I've felt that way since I was ten years old. That doesn't mean we have to kill the perpetrators: just remove them.

Retribution might make us feel better, but it doesn't solve anything. It's shutting the stable doors after the horse has bolted. We don't need a special judicial exception for the mass murder of children: we need that to not happen in the first place. At that scale, it's not one person: it's an institutional failing. We need those institutional failings to not happen: talk of punishment, except to the extent it has a deterrent effect (which I'm generally sceptical of), is a distraction.

Aviation rarely blames pilots for plane crashes, even when it's clearly their fault (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suicide_by_pilot#By_pilots_in_...): they do things like a two-in-cockpit policy. Aeroplanes are among the safest places in the world. That attitude seems a better one to mimic.

What does it truly mean, to say “never again”?

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

#147

Post by ufo »

ekianjo wrote: post #136
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…

> Death sentence is probably a bit much Why? If you knowingly decide to poison thousands of people, that makes you a mass murderer. Since when are we so lenient about those?

Most countries in the world have abolished the death penalty, for good reason.

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

#148

Post by lostlogin »

ekianjo wrote: post #136
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…

> Death sentence is probably a bit much Why? If you knowingly decide to poison thousands of people, that makes you a mass murderer. Since when are we so lenient about those?

Some places don't execute mass murderers either. There are plenty of arguments around this. For example, based on the crime rates in places with death sentences, I'm not sure it provides as strong a disincentive you think it does.

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

#149

Post by chefandy »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #6
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…

In China, there was a case of baby formula execs (Edit: pointed out to me further down thread that the execs were only jailed for 5-15 years with Sanlu's general manager receiving a life sentence, and the people executed very those directly responsible for tainting the product mentioned) knowingly selling product that was harmful and led to tens of thousands of hospitalizations and a handful of deaths. They were exec…

The question isn't "do they deserve to die," it's "is our legal system fallible enough to screw it up," and it has many times.

The problem with our relying on prison and financial punishments with corporate malfeasance is that a) rich people can "play the game" enough to get absurdly preferential treatment in the prison system, and b) the financial penalties are never truly scaled up to the life-ruining penalties most regular people might experience.

In the formula case, I'd rather see the executives condemned to physically serving the families of those affected, and having every asset they own liquefied and split between them.

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

#150

Post by ordinaryradical »

MarkMarine wrote: post #122
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…

Unfortunately the companies manage to wriggle out of all liability by saying they are bankrupt or transferring to a new company structure. https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsona... https://www.lawsuit-information-center.com/2-billion-verdict... $200,000 per victim for knowingly being given cancer. Obscene. I think China executing people is much closer to justice than our system.

Something like a real solution is to create a way to reintroduce personal liability for executive teams in cases like this where extraordinary harm is done. Human beings need to have their own assets and personal well being at risk, otherwise the incentives for perpetrating mass pollution are too lucrative.

Jail and financial annihilation are basically the only ways to try to counterbalance the massive upside you can get from sociopathic behavior like this.

We need to start treating this more like fraud, but perpetrated as a form of violence.

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