> Companies exist to provide jobs. Not only to make money for the owner and externalise all the negative effects on society.
I think it's safe to say that the one who starts something has the privilege to make the call on its purpose. And I'd bet most if not all people who start companies do so in order to make money for themselves, and providing jobs is a means to that end.
So, if a company could make profit without employing a single person, it would still serve its purpose.
I guess a lot of people feel that if they didn’t have the ability to know about all relevant products and services, the quality of their lives wouldn’t suffer.
Such regulation would inevitably introduce exceptions for products with limited-time use (because it doesn't make sense to support everything forever), manufacturers would explicitly mark all products as such, and consumers wouldn't even find it wrong.
New incentives to would hit market reality where most people want cheap devices, not lifetime support for something they themselves consider practically disposable.
If most consumers don't care, regulation won't help. Much like climate change.
I think it's the mass immigrations that (some) people are calling out as not in their own best interest, without necessarily believing the immigrants are bad or in any way worse humans than themselves to call it racist.
They knew, or should have known. They knew exactly what he had bought and in what quantity, and anyone who knew anything about radioactive material would have concluded it was safe, or if they had doubts, they would have sent maybe two people to go knock on his door and ask to look around.
This was someone or a small group inside the border force who didn't have a clue what they were doing, cocked up, tried to make a big showy scene of things, and then scrambled to save face after the actual experts clued them in that a) what he had was safe and b) was 100% legal to own. (note that he was prosecuted for something that the border force allowed through years before the sample they erroneously thought was a problem, and that was not illegal to own, only illegal under a very twisted interpretation of an obscure law to import).
Also, the question shouldn't be "Did they know it was harmless?" It should be "Did they know it was harmful?" You don't initiate a huge hazmat incident, close off homes and evacuate people just because "you're not sure it was harmless." You do that when you know it's harmful.
The hazmat crew was literally manufactured drama for a prosecutor (who somehow continues not to be named in this ridiculous case) to build a better case.
IANAL, but in general, doxxing people is just a really mean thing to do.
Convicted criminal? Sure, write a story. In the most hopeful case, the sentence they serve will help reintegrate them with society - even then, it's good to know who you're dealing with.
Proven innocent? Lawful or not, you're now carrying the weight of possibly ruining someone's life even further. Sleep on that.
In the UK, a story is legally considered libellous if it's written in a way that could harm its subject, even if the facts are true. That means it would be a tort against the convicted criminal to name them if it wouldn't be in the public interest to do so.
Libel strictly implies false statement and it is a full defence to show that the statement is true:
"It is a defence to an action for defamation for the defendant to show that the imputation conveyed by the statement complained of is substantially true." [1]
That has to be the case otherwise it would be unlawful to say or publish anything negative about someone!
Public interest defence applies when the statement published was false.
Note that convicted criminals are always publicly named unless the court forbids it. In that latter case naming the person would still not be libel but contempt of court (which potentially means jail).
> Convicted criminal? Sure, write a story. In the most hopeful case, the sentence they serve will help reintegrate them with society - even then, it's good to know who you're dealing with.
Even this is somewhat problematic. There seems to be a widespread idea that "criminality" is somehow an integral feature of some (un)people for whom almost anything goes, their lives being ruined is of no concern (not saying you imply these), and it's crucial to know who have this feature.
Something like this was actually a phrenologically motivated "scientific" view in the 19th century most famously by Lombroso's phrenological and eugenical "theory", but other "biological theories of criminality" are still around. It's not that such views are necessarily widely held, but it was the backdrop of the development of much of criminal policy.
The distorted view of crime and the tragedies it causes for both "innocent" and "criminal" is really sad.
Note: I'm not really arguing against you rollcat here or attributing this thinking to you. Just something tangentially related.
Yep that was a silly assumption on my part; I've just remembered a story from like 10 years ago. One of my skate buddies, very chill and motivated guy. He's had a terrible accident. He was in his home, mixed alcohol with his new medicine (which he had no idea he mustn't), and suddenly woke up strapped to a hospital bed, guards in the room. Turns out he drove a car and killed a person. He doesn't remember any of that happening, but he's had alcohol in his blood, the verdict was "obviously guilty". He served 2 years in prison, now can't find a job. Sometimes shit happens.
High inflation? No, the government LLM will tell us we're doing great.
reply