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Comment by kqr | Hacker News Reader

I don't get why that should require zoning laws.

In the end, no factory builds itself. It takes actual persons out there pouring concrete. Real, fellow humans choosing to ignore the well-being of all the people living around them, enter their neighbourhood and in effect destroy their homes.

The fact that society is so bureaucratised we don't think of it that way freaks me out a little.

The solution is not more bureaucracy. The bureaucracy is how we ended up in this situation in the first place, where I could walk into a neighbourhood and ruin it, as long as I have the right official permits, and then sleep well at night thinking that I have done a good job.

How about we try to collectively drop this idea that "I'm an X therefore I pour concrete where they tell me to without thinking more about it?" Make people personally responsible for their actions!

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> Real, fellow humans choosing to ignore the well-being of all the people living around them, enter their neighbourhood and in effect destroy their homes.

Except the people making these decisions or pouring the concrete often don't live in the neighborhood or care, they're "just doing their job".

>Make people personally responsible for their actions!

They can easily hide behind corporate bureaucracy and limited liability. If you want laissez-faire zoning, please beef up corporate civil/criminal liability and punitive damages, so offenders learn their lesson or are taken out of business.

> Except the people making these decisions or pouring the concrete often don't live in the neighborhood

Sure, but would you feel okay about ruining someone else's home as long as it's not in your neighbourhood?

> or care, they're "just doing their job".

This is the problem I want to address. When you are knowingly doing harm, you are never "just doing your job". You are intentionally taking the role of acting harmfully.

As a species, we already know this. When a war crime is committed, it is private first class John Baluzki holding the rifle who will be dragged to the Hague. "I was just following orders, please go after my superiors" is not a defense.

Individuals perform actions, corporations or dictators are powerless without individuals willing to go along with their crap. Those individuals are responsible for what they did.

So jail the guy pouring concrete or hanging drywall instead of focusing on policies that would prevent the issue? It's bad enough that the rich often view the poor as disposable. This just makes it literally true.

>Sure, but would you feel okay about ruining someone else's home as long as it's not in your neighbourhood?

Personally, no. Can we extrapolate that while also reviewing history and come to the determination that no one would ever build or do something to the detriment of others? Absolutely not.

>When a war crime is committed, it is private first class John Baluzki holding the rifle who will be dragged to the Hague

That's not really how it works. There's a ton of bureaucracy when it comes to actually bringing someone in front of ICC/The Hague, and plenty of countries shield perpetrators from ever seeing justice. War Crimes seems non-sequitar to this conversation, and it seems you have a naive understanding of them.

>Individuals perform actions, corporations or dictators are powerless without individuals willing to go along with their crap. Those individuals are responsible for what they did.

Corporations and dictators often hold sway by threat, either of livelihood or life. I think you underestimate how much power this gives them. Whistleblowers often find themselves ostracized/blackballed/murdered. There's often a lot of downside to speaking up. Also really how culpable is someone pouring concrete or running electrical at a plant that eventually starts polluting the neighborhood? Even if neighbors tell this worker "this place will pollute our neighborhood" and they ask their boss or someone higher up "is this place going to pollute the neighborhood?" they'd probably get a non-answer or a denial.

> please beef up corporate civil/criminal liability and punitive damage

That's not enough. Liability is a concept in civil law. Civil suits are inadequate not only because they can only address harms after the fact, but also because they can't even do that when the harm is delayed or diffuse. Also, replacing regulation with litigation would not reduce any of the associated burdens. It would still be necessary to set standards by which cases can be decided, to have judges and clerks and lawyers (and juries?) to measure cases against those standards, and somebody to enforce those decisions. Since the actions would have to come later, the resulting bureaucracy would probably be even larger and more intrusive than is already the case.

"Just make people responsible" ignores how people actually are held responsible in the real world. For all practical purposes "just make it easier for people to evade responsibility" is the real meaning.

> Real, fellow humans choosing to ignore the well-being of all the people

because that never happens, from selling people into slavery to dumping toxic financial products on unsuspecting citizens to knowingly poisoning them with toxic chemicals for profit.

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