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by ForHackernews
2548 days ago
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Fine, substitute "accounting fraud" then. That's a more direct comparison: fraudulent accounting practices or fraudulent e-commerce practices. Nobody dies; somebody gets ripped off. The point is that accountants are professionals and have professional standards that they adhere to. Software devs are not and do not. |
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One often overlooked relationship I find to this sort of argument is that economic harm is somehow independent of physical harm.
While in the purest theoretical sense, its obviously clear/true, the more we abstract parts of life away to monetary valuation and control, the more economic effects have real serious indirect physical consequences.
So someone lost a few bucks due to a manipulative ad? Most the time this has no serious consequences as devious as it may be. However, when lost assets become more significant or lead to serious economic distress, it can and does directly result in health effects that have physical consequence.
Obvious extreme examples include cases of financial ruin that lead to mental health distress leading to suicides. Small repeated loss could also lead to unhealthy lifestyles over time coupled with poor financial choices resulting in limited to no access to preventative healthcare... directly leading to a cause of death (say heart disease from poor dieting).
Practices of advertising from the tobacco industry in the past provide a good model for how these can effect peoples choices which over time had serious physical consequences--the main difference being the tobacco industry actually provided a dangerous product that their behaviours pushed. Arguably consumers have to actively make a choice to follow through but with enough data, people are tending to be more and more easily manipulated.