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

#151

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

billyjmc wrote: post #21

wahnfrieden wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why advocate for killing criminals when it's far cheaper to cage them for life? Fear of escape and second life as an evil business exec? Eye for an eye morality? Understanding death to be a greater deterrent than life in a cage? (How do you reconcile that with the popularity of "death-by-cop"?)

If killing criminals is more expensive than caging them, that’s an implementation detail. It’s not something to make long term planning decisions based on. If improving the economics of executions were a significant concern, it’s really straightforward to address.

That, plus there's no possible way to make executions more expensive than life imprisonment, unless the country is making incarceration profitable by using convicts as slave labor or selling their organs.

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

#152

Post by nobodyandproud » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

norir wrote: post #131

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.

Then why not make the death penalty an option for the condemned? They could choose between life in prison or an execution in a form of their choosing if they wish to be put out of their misery.

“It’s your choice, but the daily beatings will continue until you consent to your own execution.”

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

#153

Post by peoplefromibiza » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #97

nijave wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Government acquisition, divestiture, and all IP entering the public domain? Or even just forcing them to break up into more, smaller companies.

you live in a capitalist society not some socialist nightmare. Giving it to the government would be much much much worse.

except we live in a capitalistic nightmare, the solution proposed is textbook free market and socialism would have not created this nightmare to begin with.

people on HN regularly confuse state capitalism with socialism and I can't wrap my head around on why.

the two systems couldn't be more different and actually the USSR was not socialist, Stalin was not socialist, that's the biggest fabrication in modern human history.

Wanna find what socialism actually looks like? Look at the kibbutzim in Israel.

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

#154

Post by paiute » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

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…

I think this is naive. Selling off a large company like this is not smart, think about it for a minute. First, who owns 3M (I own a handful of shares for example). Average shareholders will get screwed. Then think about who will buy their assets (IP and manufacturing). Will it be foreign companies? What will the contracts for medical supplies look like for like? Companies that discover they are doing harm will be incentivized to bury, lie, and hide. It’s not that simple,

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

#155

Post by mianos » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:52 PM UTC

aftbit wrote: post #112

How much of the rise in cancer cases over the past 100 years can be traced back specifically to PFCs? What other harms can chronic low-dose exposure cause? We need some proper unbiased studies of the long term chronic effects of PFCs, paid for by the EPA or some other branch of the US federal government, without any influence from environmental groups or chemical manufacturing companies.

You have proper studies of cancer increases. No mention of PFCs.

This one is particularly readable and as credible as they get: https://bmjoncology.bmj.com/content/2/1/e000049

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

#156

Post by atoav » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:53 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…

Exactly. And maybe we should make sure that crimes against humanity that go unpunished today can (and will) be punished in the future. Some climate activist kids on tiktok call this "Nuremberg 2046".

Doing illegal stuff and lobbying your best to get away with it has become so normal nowadays that maybe an appeal to the honor of the people involved does not cut it.

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

#157

Post by macintux » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:54 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #138

macintux wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Therefore we should give accused murderers fair trials before executing them. There are many examples of accused murderers who received fair trials, were convicted, and yet were still innocent.

As 'xvector points out, the alternative punishment - like long sentences in high-security facilities - can, in practice, be much, much worse. This is a theory vs. practice thing - theory could say that "there's always a chance", but actual numbers will say that the country is just making convicts - guilty and innocent alike - spend decades being tortured.

It's far more likely that we can fix prisons than we can fix the judicial system to guarantee that only the guilty are convicted.

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

#158

Post by sundvor » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:55 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #102

14 wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

If there's never any real justice, some sort of correction needs to occur.

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

#159

Post by wahnfrieden » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

gosub100 wrote: post #66

KennyBlanken wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I get the joke, but what we need is a constitutional amendment overriding Citizens United, reigning in the absurdity of "corporations have free speech rights and thus they can spend whatever they want on political campaigns and PACs, and without even reporting it."

I agree wholeheartedly. What if one or both political parties spoke out about campaign finance corruption? What if they refuses corporate donations, and made direct appeals to their voters to chip in (YouTuber style). I'm trying very hard to not be partisan here, but why doesn't either party take a stand? Don't they share responsibility for accepting the money?

Why would they take a stand against their own interests?

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

#160

Post by TeMPOraL » Sun, Dec 17, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #146

TeMPOraL wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I mostly agree with you. I suppose I missed one important part in my comment - intent. A surviving pilot may not be blamed for a plane crash and associated deaths for merely being at fault. But I bet the story would be different if they did this intentionally, or intentionally allowed it to happen - we'd be talking murder / terrorism charges.

Same in this case, I feel there's a difference between deaths of children as a result of lack of care or attention, vs. knowingly letting it happen because of personal gains.