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Comment by 2OEH8eoCRo0 | Hacker News Reader

I could picture an alternate reality where the cost of pedestrian injury is factored into the cost of doing business. People gathering below hoping to be hit by falling billionaire debris in hope of a payday.

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Got you, 'fam! https://metro.co.uk/2017/02/17/man-stands-under-loose-sign-f...

A 2 year old was killed by a piece falling from a building a few years ago. Her father wrote a heartbreaking book about it https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/once-more-we-saw-stars-jays...

Reminds me of São Paulo's famous Copan building. It's tiles were falling off, so they covered it in a big net and haven't been able to fix it for 10+ years.

An interesting thought experiment, but given the height of the building… it will be the victims families collecting any payday.

Externalities are the bane of capitalism. We wouldnt have capitalism if it had to be accountable.

That is sloppy thinking. If you have private property and the ability to profit from labor then you have Capitalism. The need to regulate architectural liabilities goes back as far as history. The current thinking that any regulation impedes Capitalism is both radical and new.

Ok, bit you wpuld not have profit if you had to pay for labors heapthcare

Sloppy is not knowing what externalities are.

One can still have profit and pay for healthcare. Dozens of examples exist.

Then explain why the largest capitalist government can't do that.

It could, it just doesn’t want to. Or at least the inertia and obstacles of gaining enough political support for doing it, paired with the reluctance of the powerful entities that gain from the existing system, prevents it from happening. But there is nothing that makes it fundamentally incompatible with still allowing private enterprise and profit

Fundamentally, not paying for externalities is why it "succeeds". It's foundational. As I stated at the top.

Capitalism succeeds even where they do pay for externalities, so you are wrong.

really, is that why all these brownfields were abandoned? We got billion dollar contamination everywhere that no one wants and random people suffer.

It's simply a failed accounting system you have.

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