L.A.'s coast was once a DDT dumping ground, but no one could see it until now

Post by jacobush » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 5:30 PM UTC

darkcha0s wrote: post #166

CJefferson wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No-one is talking about putting people in jail, but also (in my opinion), someone shouldn't get to inherit millions of dollars just because their grandfather committed some terrible crime -- inheritance should not be a right, when the original money was acquired illegally.

Whether that punishment is jail time or a fine is secondary. The primary question is, should the decedents be punished for a crime they did not commit? Moreover, where do you draw the line? Should all the decedents of german families who got their wealth off the back of slave labor by jews also be forced to forfeit their wealth? What about the decedents of families of plantation owners? How do you go about handling t…

Post by arrosenberg » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 5:31 PM UTC

tsdlts wrote: post #109

Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good point. Where's the line between knowingingly circumventing the spirit of the law by following the letter. For example Teflon has been replaced with chemically similar compounds that just aren't Teflon. It'll take decades for the studies to come in, in the mean time every human is being exposed to these chemicals in significant amounts. Then we have bpa, Neonicotinoids and other pesticides. We have cases…

Isn't this a regulation failure though? The fact that these chemicals who we don't know the full effects of are let to market is the problem. Preventative measures make more sense than criminalizing things only when we find out there's a problem. Also, what if the company has been acquired since then, is it still on the hook? What if they've since switched markets entirely? What if the company disbanded and the found…

Post by burrows » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 5:37 PM UTC

nix0n wrote: post #72

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So we should tax the crap out of everyone's estates on the premise that they probably wronged society and that society will need to pay to un-screw up whatever they did?!? Whatever happened to giving people the benefit of the doubt? Whatever happens to presumption of innocence? Firstly anyone with a brain is gonna conveniently go broke before they die if you try and pull something like that. Second I'm struggling to…

> So we should tax the crap out of everyone's estates Just the wealthy. Estate taxes have (in the USA) applied only to large estates. > on the premise that they probably wronged society Some wealth is inherited now, but large gains (extracted from the market) are generally the result of exploitation. > anyone with a brain is gonna conveniently go broke before they die That's already happening, they call it The Giving…

Post by adamsea » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #110

macspoofing wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Jesus christ, sometimes HN has some wild opinions. I'm not a libertarian myself, but I miss the libertarianism of Silicon Valley and HN. They are still around, but there's a lot more progressives around and there is a very real authoritarian and violent strain that runs through that movement.

> here's a lot more progressives around and there is a very real authoritarian and violent strain that runs through that movement. Actual facts show that at this moment in time in the U.S. it's white supremacists and related extreme-right ideologies which are producing most domestic terrorism (i.e. actual violence). https://www.csis.org/analysis/war-comes-home-evolution-domes...

Post by tsdlts » Mon, Oct 26, 2020, 6:06 PM UTC

majormajor wrote: post #188

tsdlts wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"I don't think it's even relevant that it was not legal at the time". Imagine setting the precedent that the government can unilaterally decide to steal your property based on something your great grandfather did which wasn't even a crime. Do you not see how such a power might be abused in future when you can retroactively punish people for laws where the ink has yet to dry and that they never even committed?

Lots of people here so worried about hypothetical future wrongs that they will shrug away existing past wrongs. We've gotten way too fixated on the theoretical worst case to realize that we're already living in a pretty bad story. Let's deal with future harms when they happen, but let's deal with existing ones now.