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Comment by stavros | Hacker News Reader

Oh man, I didn't expect to read a comment saying "it's OK if 100 times more cars have accidents as long as a company isn't liable".

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I read the parent as meaning to say that because Mercedes will be liable, even 1,000 accidents will be a real problem for them. This is a good thing because it shows that Mercedes expects a very low number of accidents while the system is enabled.

Mercedes accepting the risk like this is a massive step forward for these reasons. It sets a precedent that hopefully others will follow. They wouldn't transfer the risk if they didn't think it would profit them.

I guess, maybe I misunderstood. I was just surprised to read "it's better to have a ton of deaths, rather than a few deaths we're on the hook for".

From the company's point of view this is correct reasoning. The sooner people realize companies do not have any responsibility to be moral the better

It's actually a human thing. When bad things happen, we strongly prefer that they don't happen as a result of something that we did.

They absolutely do have responsibility. There's no reason we should allow investors limited liability if they are going to be assholes about it.

Corporations should only exist because they are net beneficial to the public!

I do agree that enough companies are unethical that it is reasonable to expect it.

This is just naive. Every company that makes any kind of product has made some kind of trade like this.

Costco sells you knives cheaply because they will not be liable if you murder people with them. If the Costco investors were liable for murder every time one of their knives was used to kill someone, you can bet they would just not sell them entirely.

Just because a company thinks about liability doesn’t mean it’s immoral. Individuals avoid liability as much as possible too (see insurance).

The world is dangerous and “fault” is everywhere.

I'm not sure what your point is. My comment is a statement that corporations do have a responsibility to act in the interests of society, not an analysis of the particular ethics of selling knives or avoiding liability.

So do people, which are the ones that run companies. What’s your point?

On the other hand, if incautiously switching from the former to the latter drives your company bankrupt, the end result doesn't benefit anyone.

I feel like almost any summary of the form "so you're saying it's ok that..." is almost without exception not something the other person would agree with.

That's kind of the whole point. If a decision or policy has predictable consequences that aren't being addressed, either the decision-maker is unaware of those consequences or is accepting of those consequences. Asking the question removes ignorance as a possibility, and lets the conversation continue.

Sometimes the answer is "No, I was unaware, and I will adjust my decision." Sometimes the answer is "Yes, here are the consequences of the alternatives, and here's why I believe this set of consequences to be best." Sometimes the answer is "Yes, I don't care about those people." By asking the question, these three types of answers respectively give the other person an opportunity to improve themselves, give you an opportunity to learn from the other person, or give the audience an opportunity to learn not to trust the other person.

> Sometimes the answer is "Yes, I don't care about those people."

Frequently true but rarely admitted

You missed one option; "You're falling prey to the is-ought fallacy." That is, saying that something is true is not the same as saying that something should be true. The original claim was that from the perspective of management at a company, 1,000 accidents the company is legally liable for is worse than 100,000 it isn't. Which is true! From that limited perspective! The reply "so you're saying it's ok that..." implies that the comment agreed with that perspective, which isn't necessarily the case. It could simply be pointing out a failure state of current management practices and corporate law. But further than that, that phrase is usually a particularly uncharitable one, and I find this usage of it to be more common than any other. I think "implying the speaker believes that the unfortunate condition they pointed out is right and just" is the normal use case for that phrase, rather than trying to bring attention to the consequences of a policy.

> You missed one option; "You're falling prey to the is-ought fallacy." That is, saying that something is true is not the same as saying that something should be true.

I think I'd put that as a subcategory of the second case, that the options were considered and this one was considered the best. That may mean that it is the least worst of several bad options, or that there are restricted options to choose from.

> Which is true! From that limited perspective! ... It could simply be pointing out a failure state of current management practices and corporate law.

I definitely agree, this is a fantastic example of options having been considered and rejected. In this case, the alternative would be "A self-driving car company accepts more liability than they can handle, and go bankrupt. This saves lives in the short-term, but costs lives in the long-term." It can then be the start of an entirely different conversation of how to avoid that failure state, and what would need to change in order to still get the benefits of that decision.

> The reply "so you're saying it's ok that..." implies that the comment agreed with that perspective, which isn't necessarily the case.

I'd make a distinction between a comment agreeing with a perspective and a commenter agreeing with a perspective. One is based solely on the text as it is written, and the other is a human's internal belief. It's not necessarily a statement that the person is wrong, but that the words they have spoken may have unintended consequences. The difference between "So you're saying $IDEA." and "So you believe $IDEA."

> I think "implying the speaker believes that the unfortunate condition they pointed out is right and just" is the normal use case for that phrase, rather than trying to bring attention to the consequences of a policy.

Good point. In situations where there are no long-term social relationships to be maintained, and where there isn't a good chance for a reply, the message given to the audience is the only one remaining. This is a major issue I have with any social group beyond a few dozen people, and one that I don't have any good solutions for.

From a corporate perspective, of course it is. It's the Ford Pinto study all over again.

This is why corporate influence on legislation is bad, as their "best interests" often come at odds with morality-based ones.

Fight Club summarized the Pinto thing nicely:

https://www.quotes.net/mquote/31826

without providing the illusion that such cost benefit analyses are a thing of the past.

(Pintos had a problem with the gas tank, not the differential, but it's pretty clear what they were referring to.)

Most car accidents are 100% operator error, it'd be really far fetched to try to blame those on the manufacturer.

Autopilot not so much, the point stands.

Launch control option added by car manufacturers I'd say is 100% the car manufacturer's fault they thought of it, installed it, promoted it, but it's pointless and dangerous.

It clearly has a point, because they successfully market and sell the feature. And everything is dangerous to some degree.

Clearly it is not 100% their fault because the feature can certainly be used responsibly.

Is there a more nuanced and substantive form of your argument against developing and selling a launch control feature?

>launch control How many accidents happen from a standstill? Id love to see some stats, but i highly doubt it would be a high number

That's not really what the OP is saying though, is it?

True, it was more "the company would rather have 100k accidents it's not liable for rather than 1k accidents it is". Doesn't make it much better for me.

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