The people making the final decisions on their usage have the money to avoid 99% of it themselves and figure they will be dead before it would really matter to them. The rest are either ignorant or put their livelihood at risk oppossing a massive corporation.
To what end? The severity of capital punishment barely effects civilian crime numbers.
Instead - and i have spent all of 10 seconds thinking this through - what about we just pay people to snitch on a business/employer if its knowingly doing such things. Perhaps in % of the settlement and/or potential fall out costs.
That'd change behavior as well as catch issues soon enough to prevent them.
It has been said that a person cannot serve two masters.
The incentive system in the West right now is structured such that corporate executives gain a great reward from serving their company, and little punishment from failing to serve humanity. If society is to flourish, humanity must be structurally prioritized.
Due to regulatory capture and general corruption, I don't think an approach that merely tries to punish corporations financially will ever work. If you have executive powers and commit or permit a crime against humanity in the name of your company, then you have declared your allegiance. A functioning society would punish this in the most serious way possible. Great power, great responsibility and all that.
We used to reward people for serving humanity by making them feel good about public service and being a citizen and neighbour. That was a thing people around me had growing up and many of my family dedicated their life to public service professions (teaching, city administration, etc.) on that basis. And this was common among the middle class generally. You could have a reasonable lifelong profession and a good retirement doing this.
Cynicism has washed that away. And people openly disparage public servants and get resentful of people who still manage to pull a living in this way.
The vast majority of "civilian crimes" are crimes of passion, desperation, or being actually mentally incapable of reasoning about consequences.
That is not what these crimes are nor who commits them. These people actually tend to speak with lawyers prior to committing their crimes, and their lawyers will report something between "not technically illegal" to "probably illegal and the penalty is [something you really don't care about at all]"
We can, should, and in fact already do have whistleblowers as well. But all you're doing is (slightly) raising the chances that you get reported. There are still many, many corruptible steps from that to being investigated, then from being investigated to being convicted, then from being convicted to being punished.
In fact, as we've already established, the actual "punishment" is frequently not a punishment at all. It's just the cost of doing business.
Consider these responses to an executive asking their lawyer for guidance on a legally ambiguous but clearly antisocial decision (where most of these decisions land):
Response 1: "Not clearly illegal, we could argue it in court, and if we lose the penalty is a couple million dollars."
Response 2: "Not clearly illegal, we could argue it in court, and if we lose the penalty is you going to prison for the rest of your life."
I’m no proponent of capital punishment, but to take the question seriously: as an extreme measure to disincentivize extreme externalities that would otherwise never be priced in. In the status quo, captains of industry have something close to a call option on the social utility of their products. They capture much of the upside (they get paid when people enjoy their goretex jackets), but are pretty free to socialize tail risks (relative to the harm, they have little to lose from poisoning thousands. Maybe a lawsuit. Maybe they have to sell the third house.) A society could decide that this is not a desirable incentive structure.
There’s a pirates-and-emperors aspect to this: such measures are taken in some societies to disincentivize O(1) violent crimes. Why (really, why? It’s worth thinking about!) are they rarely taken for O(n) crimes?
x% of the money distributed to shareholders for how long this was going on taken from current revenue, not benefits.
That should also push shareholders to do the right choices in who they support.
Because our civilization relies on governance and corrupt and degraded government can fail and collapse countries and even civilizations, leading to immeasurable levels of harm to all of humanity.
It is a form of mass scale murder once you add up all the collective harm.
At the very least the people responsible need to be treated like the dangerous psychopaths that they are and be imprisoned for the rest of their lives for the safety of the public. These people don't care about anything except getting more wealth and power for themselves and we have the ability to place limits on the kinds of behaviors that will get them what they want. Right now we're just rewarding them no matter how many people they mass poison or murder.
Also, we are in the middle of insect biodiversity freefall. Summary: A global meta-analysis covering 166 surveys at 1,676 sites between 1925 and 2018 estimated terrestrial insect abundance fell about 0.9% per year on average—roughly 9% per decade, 24–25% over 30 years, or about 50% over 75 yearshttps://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aax9931
The originally submitted link is a transcript of a podcast. I really respect the fact that they write these, as I prefer to read over listening. The URL I posted is linked in the original submission as the original story, which is even better for reading IMO.
Here's a link to the audio form of the podcast, also linked in the original submission. It's on Apple Podcasts too, if you prefer.
The "interview" format is a bit difficult to read.
Assuming they did keep it a secret, we had so many other hazards that were (and still are) in common use: lead, mercury, tobacco, chlordane, asbestos, etc... So even if true; even if you accept this as some conspiracy, it would seem to pale in comparison to the list I just gave. We seemingly survived and thrived with with substances far worse than a little plastic running around in our bloodstream, yet this remains the topic of the day and it makes me wonder how real the outrage is (proportionate to other hazards) or if this is just liberal minded "see the big companies are out to get us and this is just the current example". It would be far more persuasive imho to just argue the later point independently, because the plastic (using the term loosely) topic comes up so frequently that to some of us it is just repetitive and not really constructive.
>or if this is just liberal minded "see the big companies are out to get us and this is just the current example".
Of course, as opposed to the objective minded "there is no conspiracy ever, when it is repeatedly demonstrated that corporations will poison, experiment on and destroy human lives if it favors their bottom line and they think they can get away with it, this is not to be interpreted as a pattern or structural issue, it's just coincidences and 'bad' individual actors all the way down".
> lead, mercury, tobacco, chlordane, asbestos, etc... far worse …
Lead, mercury - this is exactly the level of harm being asserted.
The claim that these are “far worse” is doing a lot of work here.
> assuming they did keep it a secret
So now this comment is denying the facts in the reporting? I was taking you seriously until I realized that you are claiming the whole narrative is false from the start.
It seems you and I now have something in common inside our bodies: PFOS. I've finally found a point of connection between us.
Out of curiosity as to why 3M would insert this commonality into me to help us share a sense of solidarity, I looked up some safety-related research papers. I came across a 3M technical paper by Seacat et al. (2002)[1], which claims that under their experimental conditions, no harmful effects were observed up to a certain dose.
Seeing this perfectly illustrates just how much science and technology are dictated by the institutions they are affiliated with.
> They have developmental effects, immune effects. Thyroid, liver, hormonal systems. Some cause cancer, kidney cancer, obesity. They bind to proteins in your blood, and they change how systems in your bodies work.
Is there any evidence that the amounts found in humans using non stick pans, for example, and not those drinking water downstream from an industrial source of “forever chemicals”, have any of these effects?
It’s not just from industrial sources. Many flame retardants are “forever chemicals” & are often wantonly dumped by fire departments, Air Force bases, etc.
Or do some research yourself and at least post evidence that you think requires a higher amount of PFAS than you believe is reasonable.
Imagine making the same argument about lead. Leaded gasoline was suspected environmental toxin since like the 1920’s (!!). The EPA now says there is no safe minimum level of lead in the blood. Am I going to hear the same argument there?
// rant …
Chemical is known to be an endocrine disruptor. Maybe endocrine isn’t that important.
Chemical is known to cause birth defects. Maybe the levels used in the study are higher than observed in nature.
Chemical is proven to spread everywhere in the food chain. Maybe it’s inert. Well maybe at that level of concentration it’s harmless. Well maybe humans will adapt to its presence.
It’s like talking to someone who thinks the Grand Canyon was formed over 40 days and nights of the Great Flood. No matter what argument you present, it’s not good enough. There’s always a loophole. Maybe rocks used to be softer so they would erode faster, blah blah blah.
Actually, I think there is a misunderstanding about the dangerousness of non stick pans.
PTFE (the actual pan coating) is a PFAS, but is not known to be a health hazard. It is environmentally challenging, as it does not decompose, but when people think of the toxicity, they think of the other PFAS that are needed to synthesize PTFE that often end up in the environment and get trapped in small quantities under the PTFE coatings of the pan sometimes (or used to) which can bioaccumulate and be toxic once ingested (which can happen if you damage the coating) or and the PFAS fumes that get released when overheating pans (they cannot bioaccumulate but are toxic enough that they can make you dizzy and kill pets). Supposedly, PTFE could also be manufactured differently in a safe way (probably still not environmentally friendly but at least non toxic), but figuring that out is hard especially given the economic stakes.
It's hard to find unbiased information about PFAS, both industries selling PFAs and selling alternatives are fighting hard on the Internet.
It's just an open ended ask for information. Google and LLMs are right there, so in actuality the poster was basically saying he/she does not believe it while not saying it directly. It feels disingenuous.
There's an excellent film with, and produced by, Mark Ruffalo ("Avengers").
"Dark Waters" about the environmental lawyer who exposed the whole fowl conspiracy by DuPont Chemicals and the knowingly poisoning of the (American) people for decades (and still continuing). Most recommended !
A team of New York University researchers estimated in 2018 that the costs of just two forever chemicals, PFOA and PFOS — in terms of disease burden, disability and health-care expenses — amounted to as much as $62 billion in a single year. This exceeds the current market value of 3M.
Seems as good a reason as any to nationalize it, have the shareholders forfeit their chips at a steep loss, and ensure its remnant facilities only produce socially positive, safe products.
And so, you run up against a phenomenon every bit as natural as the forever durability as PFAS: Markets can respond to uncomfortable truths. Organizations of real humans? Not so much.
70 comments
[ 0.25 ms ] story [ 4.3 ms ] threadKnowingly poison the population in search of profit? Nothing! No consequences!
[0] https://www.yahoo.com/news/us/articles/traffic-stop-led-poli...
Instead - and i have spent all of 10 seconds thinking this through - what about we just pay people to snitch on a business/employer if its knowingly doing such things. Perhaps in % of the settlement and/or potential fall out costs.
That'd change behavior as well as catch issues soon enough to prevent them.
The satisfaction of revenge and the entertainment value of watching it televised.
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/albert-camus-reflect...
The incentive system in the West right now is structured such that corporate executives gain a great reward from serving their company, and little punishment from failing to serve humanity. If society is to flourish, humanity must be structurally prioritized.
Due to regulatory capture and general corruption, I don't think an approach that merely tries to punish corporations financially will ever work. If you have executive powers and commit or permit a crime against humanity in the name of your company, then you have declared your allegiance. A functioning society would punish this in the most serious way possible. Great power, great responsibility and all that.
Cynicism has washed that away. And people openly disparage public servants and get resentful of people who still manage to pull a living in this way.
That is not what these crimes are nor who commits them. These people actually tend to speak with lawyers prior to committing their crimes, and their lawyers will report something between "not technically illegal" to "probably illegal and the penalty is [something you really don't care about at all]"
We can, should, and in fact already do have whistleblowers as well. But all you're doing is (slightly) raising the chances that you get reported. There are still many, many corruptible steps from that to being investigated, then from being investigated to being convicted, then from being convicted to being punished.
In fact, as we've already established, the actual "punishment" is frequently not a punishment at all. It's just the cost of doing business.
Consider these responses to an executive asking their lawyer for guidance on a legally ambiguous but clearly antisocial decision (where most of these decisions land):
Response 1: "Not clearly illegal, we could argue it in court, and if we lose the penalty is a couple million dollars."
Response 2: "Not clearly illegal, we could argue it in court, and if we lose the penalty is you going to prison for the rest of your life."
There’s a pirates-and-emperors aspect to this: such measures are taken in some societies to disincentivize O(1) violent crimes. Why (really, why? It’s worth thinking about!) are they rarely taken for O(n) crimes?
See who owns Thames Water now and compare with who held it 15-20 years ago
It is a form of mass scale murder once you add up all the collective harm.
Same thing goes for the oil industry and CO2 emissions, which we've known about for 5 decades.
Nothing changes even if we know about these chemicals
Here's a link to the audio form of the podcast, also linked in the original submission. It's on Apple Podcasts too, if you prefer.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/32mnc87hQT9uigtMwy3l6j
Assuming they did keep it a secret, we had so many other hazards that were (and still are) in common use: lead, mercury, tobacco, chlordane, asbestos, etc... So even if true; even if you accept this as some conspiracy, it would seem to pale in comparison to the list I just gave. We seemingly survived and thrived with with substances far worse than a little plastic running around in our bloodstream, yet this remains the topic of the day and it makes me wonder how real the outrage is (proportionate to other hazards) or if this is just liberal minded "see the big companies are out to get us and this is just the current example". It would be far more persuasive imho to just argue the later point independently, because the plastic (using the term loosely) topic comes up so frequently that to some of us it is just repetitive and not really constructive.
Of course, as opposed to the objective minded "there is no conspiracy ever, when it is repeatedly demonstrated that corporations will poison, experiment on and destroy human lives if it favors their bottom line and they think they can get away with it, this is not to be interpreted as a pattern or structural issue, it's just coincidences and 'bad' individual actors all the way down".
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2009-07-31/pfizer-pays-us75m-ove...
https://www.iatp.org/sites/default/files/No_More_Bhopals_Env...
https://www.bmj.com/content/376/bmj.o681
Their questioning whether the outage surrounding a specific hazard is proportionate to its known danger does not mean they believe no hazards exist.
Lead, mercury - this is exactly the level of harm being asserted.
The claim that these are “far worse” is doing a lot of work here.
> assuming they did keep it a secret
So now this comment is denying the facts in the reporting? I was taking you seriously until I realized that you are claiming the whole narrative is false from the start.
Out of curiosity as to why 3M would insert this commonality into me to help us share a sense of solidarity, I looked up some safety-related research papers. I came across a 3M technical paper by Seacat et al. (2002)[1], which claims that under their experimental conditions, no harmful effects were observed up to a certain dose.
Seeing this perfectly illustrates just how much science and technology are dictated by the institutions they are affiliated with.
[1]https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12075127/
And from the article: at that point 3M execs had known this class of chemicals was toxic for 3 decades.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/10/health/pfas-pesticides-indust...
Is there any evidence that the amounts found in humans using non stick pans, for example, and not those drinking water downstream from an industrial source of “forever chemicals”, have any of these effects?
This is frustrating.
At some point you have to admit you’re in denial.
Or do some research yourself and at least post evidence that you think requires a higher amount of PFAS than you believe is reasonable.
Imagine making the same argument about lead. Leaded gasoline was suspected environmental toxin since like the 1920’s (!!). The EPA now says there is no safe minimum level of lead in the blood. Am I going to hear the same argument there?
// rant …
Chemical is known to be an endocrine disruptor. Maybe endocrine isn’t that important.
Chemical is known to cause birth defects. Maybe the levels used in the study are higher than observed in nature.
Chemical is proven to spread everywhere in the food chain. Maybe it’s inert. Well maybe at that level of concentration it’s harmless. Well maybe humans will adapt to its presence.
It’s like talking to someone who thinks the Grand Canyon was formed over 40 days and nights of the Great Flood. No matter what argument you present, it’s not good enough. There’s always a loophole. Maybe rocks used to be softer so they would erode faster, blah blah blah.
It's pretty reasonable to ask for that level of evidence for things that are this important.
PTFE (the actual pan coating) is a PFAS, but is not known to be a health hazard. It is environmentally challenging, as it does not decompose, but when people think of the toxicity, they think of the other PFAS that are needed to synthesize PTFE that often end up in the environment and get trapped in small quantities under the PTFE coatings of the pan sometimes (or used to) which can bioaccumulate and be toxic once ingested (which can happen if you damage the coating) or and the PFAS fumes that get released when overheating pans (they cannot bioaccumulate but are toxic enough that they can make you dizzy and kill pets). Supposedly, PTFE could also be manufactured differently in a safe way (probably still not environmentally friendly but at least non toxic), but figuring that out is hard especially given the economic stakes.
It's hard to find unbiased information about PFAS, both industries selling PFAs and selling alternatives are fighting hard on the Internet.
https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY
https://youtu.be/SC2eSujzrUY