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Comment by OscarCunningham | Hacker News Reader

I'll give a consequentialist argument:

If way make a policy of forcing oil companies to pay for damage due to leaks caused by hurricanes, then they will choose not to build oil platforms for which the expected damage caused by such leaks exceeds the expected value of using the oil.

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Exactly. Instead, the corporations can extract all of the value of the oil, and we the people feel the losses of the resulting environmental damage for years. If the the expected damage exceeds the expected value, then they should not be building the platforms. In America someone eats the losses, but not them.

I don't agree with such a policy for any industry. Do you want to send developers to jail because of a bug in some medical, or otherwise critical software? There is your consequence.

If bad code causes the failure of somebody's medical equipment, then the company that released said code should absolutely be held responsible. I wouldn't go so far as to hold individual developers responsible because there should be a complex QC process in place before life-critical software makes it anywhere near market, but certainly the company as a whole, and potentially whatever executive fast-tracked the release of said software, is at fault.

Agreed. Similarly, the whole internet of shit phenomenon looks a lot like environmental pollution to me: People cutting corners and shirking responsibilities to increase profit leading to an internet environment infested by botnets and worms...

In certain cases. For example, there are some people at Equifax that should be held accountable. Doctors and perhaps civil engineers can be held liable in the US.

What is the consequence exactly?

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