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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

#51

Post by xvector »

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…

Death sentence is absolutely not too much. It's an extraordinarily effective deterrent (see Singapore), and I don't know where the narrative comes from that it's not. Some people simply need to die.

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

#52

Post by nier »

aaomidi wrote: post #37
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 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.

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

#53

Post by peyton »

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.

China uses the death penalty this way. North Korea has an even stricter system. I don’t think the number of cases have rapidly gone to zero. It seems to breed endogenous corruption and a mafioso approach to internal affairs. You have to deal with lack of proportionality—no matter where you draw the line, once you’ve crossed it there’s no reason not to keep going.

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

#54

Post by DrJokepu »

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…

That’s not what happened though, is it? Execs got away relatively lightly.

No executives were actually executed. Only two people were executed, a farmer producing the protein powder with melamine and the manager of a workshop processing it. Sanlu executives got away with prison sentences.

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

#55

Post by xvector »

wahnfrieden wrote: post #11
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.

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"?)

It's not about expense, it's about the fact that they do not deserve to live. Plenty of countries can economically work with the death sentence today, simply because it is part of their societies and law.

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

#56

Post by knodi123 »

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.

> I think if you threaten someone who is well off already with death ... number of cases will rapidly go to zero.

You can think that, but you'd be wrong. Everyone who commits a crime thinks they're gonna be the one to get away with it.

It's a very popular opinion among certain kinds of people, but history and even present day has shown, time and again - You can't slaughter your way to a peaceful law-abiding society.

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

#57

Post by GauntletWizard »

aaomidi wrote: post #37
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 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…

Murder can also be premeditated. In many cases, proof of premeditation is required for "Murder One".

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

#58

Post by pdonis »

acdha wrote: post #39
graphe wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is false. The executives were not harmed. Even the article you posted states that.

There’s a table of prosecutions with links like this: https://web.archive.org/web/20091125173132/http://www.nydail... Are you saying that’s fake?

No, he's saying that the people who were executed were not company executives.

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

#59

Post by xvector »

RajT88 wrote: post #22
toomuchtodo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They might get back out and are a known quantity. The premium is for assurance. Death at the hands of the state and your fellow citizens should be an absolute last resort, but still an option depending on severity of offense and when determination of guilt is ironclad. I understand the position of people who don’t believe in the death penalty, but I don’t agree with them. There are terrible humans amongst us. Everyon…

The death penalty as a deterrent does not work in our society. Nobody thinks they will actually be executed, and it is kind of a fair assumption since there are so many automatic appeals in the process due to fear of making a mistake. This is before the monied interests buy the best lawyers for their defense. China does not care so much about mistakes, they care about the deterrent effect. Different ideologies on law…

The death penalty works extraordinarily well in plenty of countries. Singapore, for example, has a marked decrease in drug crime post-death-penalty - interviews with dealers, mules, and criminals cite the death penalty as the reason they avoid Singapore.

Most studies citing the inefficacy of the death penalty are flawed and simply at odds with reality, in which evidence points to the opposite of what the studies theorize.

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

#60

Post by asdff »

KyleBerezin wrote: post #8

Ever wonder if things like this lead to companies intentionally avoiding environmental research? We need to find some way to align our interests, this seems like a dead end path. We are unintentionally incentivizing the disruption of environmental research.

Management is also incentivized to sell research that aligns with their own agenda to the board, rather than research that says maybe what they've been hired to burn money on for the last couple years wasn't the right direction at all.
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