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Comment by tshaddox | Hacker News Reader

Why is that absurd? Surely the people who own the company are more responsible for the actions of the company than people who don’t own the company. If my local barbershop where I get my hair cut turns out to be a money laundering operation, surely the owners of the barbershop are responsible for that and I am not.

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Good to know! So now I can go ahead and buy a SUV, take the airplane for travelling whenever I want, put a couple of airco's in my house and I don't have to feel too responsible for the environmental consequences because the shareholders are the ones who are responsible.

That's not at all what they wrote. Genuinely curious, did you misread? If not, what did you hope to gain by creating this strawman?

The CEO gets the money, you get the product, this mutually beneficial arrangement has led to the emission of CO2. However, the CEO can't force you to buy his products, you have to do that on your own.

The difference is that the money laundering was not caused by you getting a haircut. Money laundering is not an inherent externality of getting your hair cut.

Amazon's emissions are created by producing and shipping the crap you buy. You triggered the bad action.

If that's the accepted approach, then ask what's at the root of that again: Their centralized, clickbait marketing everywhere triggers a high % of the action.

So at least, going by the logic of "who triggers" _(not going into sensibility or customer IQ/EQ, but purely sticking to the point that was OP described clearly – "who triggers")_ – the company's Marketing departments are definitely a direct trigger, and at least that portion (% of non-organic) should be held accountable by the company.

Take some responsibility for yourself. You're a grown up with some level of agency.

Just to make it clear: Coming from a village in rural India, I have a far tinier, frugal life footprint than most. My family takes public transport daily. It's still untrue the way the GP comment is phrased, that companies do absolutely nothing wrong and everything is only because of "people". Reality is a proportion.

We in India know tragedy of commons too well: blame everybody and nothing significant happens. It's not a solution, it's a rant.

No externalities are inherent. The company you buy your products from could choose to internalize costs.

Your analogy is flawed unless you are the one laundering money in the barbershop.

The producers of pollution would be irrelevant if they had no customers.

Erm. By your logic if someone selling illegal drugs this someone is not braking the laws because if no one buys it, there no selling?

That is true. It's called Possession with the intent to supply here in the UK ... intent is the important bit. The crime of "selling drugs" is actually "holding enough drugs that no one believes they're for personal use". Many crimes are based around 'conspiracy', or the act of planning to do something illegal, without actually doing it.

selling to noone still implies possession, which is a felony.

This sort of argument is something that annoys me incredibly. There isn't a simple answer. Responsibility is shared between the shareholders for failing to demand action, the board for failing to act, the customers for supporting a climate-unfriendly company, and the government for failing to regulate well enough, and probably many others. The result is the action of a system that has complex interlinked parts. You can't just point a finger and say "no, it's their fault" and absolve all the other parties. This is a major part of why climate change is a problem - no single party can solve it without action from the rest, and most of the parties have antagonistic goals.

If you're intelligent enough to read and comment on HN, you should be capable of thinking about things in a more nuanced way.

The government is made up of employees, politicians, and lobbyists. The employees are trying to act, the politicians are doing whatever they need to get reelected, and the lobbyists are actively sabotaging any progress that might interfere with corporate profits.

The responsibility is only on the government for allowing the pollution of the commons for less than the cost of cleaning it up.

Getting away with not paying your externalities is the reason things are cheaper than your competition. Tax pollution correctly.

>..action of a system that has complex interlinked parts.

This is such a well formulated response and I just wanted to include part of it that I feel clicked with me. If I understand correctly, one entity cant take all blame because that entity also depends on actions from another entity.

> one entity cant take all blame

It depends, in some (rare?) cases, they can.

Could depend on, for example, who knew about it but ignored it, who did it intentionally, who didn't know about it.

And this comment annoys me incredibly too. (I'm not trying to fight, honestly) Yes, there no simple answer, but we have to somehow define the answer. If someone did something wrong we can indefinitely add "but someome have valid reasons to do it.." but thats does not invalidate fact that someone did something wrong and should be punished for it.

I mean, does customers/people while buying something from big company should check big company logistic, partners, technologies,travel records to define climate impact of this company?

thats does not invalidate fact that someone did something wrong and should be punished for it

No one did anything illegal, and that's the only standard that really counts. Whether something is legal is society's agreed level of whether something is wrong or not. Otherwise it can only be described as disagreeable or maybe immoral. That's why the government are partly responsible - they failed to legislate well enough.

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