[dionidium]

The way we talk about companies is kind of weird, in my opinion. "Phillip Morris" didn't make those decisions; individual human beings did. And those individual human beings are dead or retired. You see kind of a similar thing with Monsanto (now Bayer) where someone drops into a conversation about GM crops to remind everyone about Agent Orange and it's just, like, what in the world does that have to do with the debate about GM crops?

It can both be the case that the people who ran PM in the 1950s lied about the dangers of cigarettes and that Altria today is, "a very legit operational business."

[jjulius]

>And those individual human beings are dead or retired.

A company's culture doesn't necessarily change just because some folk are dead or retired.

>In 2006, a United States court found that Philip Morris "publicly ... disputed scientific findings linking smoking and disease knowing their assertions were false."[11] In a 2006 ruling, a federal court found that Altria, along with R. J. Reynolds Tobacco, Lorillard and Philip Morris were found guilty of misleading the public about the dangers of smoking.[12] Within this ruling, it was noted that "defendants altered the chemical form of nicotine delivered in mainstream cigarette smoke for the purpose of improving nicotine transfer efficiency and increasing the speed with which nicotine is absorbed by smokers."[13] This was done by manipulating smoke pH with ammonia. Adding ammonia increases the smoke pH, in a process called "freebasing" which causes smokers to be "exposed to higher internal nicotine doses and become more addicted to the product."

>In 2010, the FDA banned the use of “Light” for ventilated cigarettes because it misrepresented the products as a healthier cigarette, and Philip Morris switched to using colors to brand them to circumvent the rule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altria

[iandanforth]

Company culture outlives individuals and propagates by means of hiring, training, documentation, internal policy and incentive structures. Not to mention oral and written tradition. aka just like any other culture propagates.

[dionidium]

As with many things, there's a strong form of the argument and a weak form. I wouldn't deny the importance of culture, entirely, but I still don't think Agent Orange has anything to do with the debate about GM crops and at some point individual policies should be debated on their merits.

[cool_dude85]

That surely depends on the specifics. It's perfectly relevant if one side wishes to point out that Monsanto has lied in the past about the safety of its chemicals, or whether the company has prioritized human safety, etc. Obviously, if the point is a technical one about specific GMO crops, it's not relevant. Context, right?

[0xBDB]

This is true, but cultures can experience shame, as the Germans (and to the lesser extent the Japanese) did after WWII.

I work for a company with a 30-year-old felony conviction (as a company). Pretty much the first thing that happens on new hire orientation day is that they tell you what happened, not to ever do it again, and all of the many ways available to rat out anyone who is doing it or letting it happen.

[Beltalowda]

I agree with your general point about companies, but not all those people are "dead or retired". Go to Asia or Africa and you will see advertisements you had in the West a few decades ago everywhere, including ads targetted at children.

My favourite is "winners don't quit". That was about two years ago.

[jrm4]

It can but you'd be an absolute sucker to assume it.

What's really odd is for people to believe that companies doing bad things requires a continued supply of bad individuals. It doesn't, humans and systems are good at rationalizing bad behavior.

[random314]

Just like Pclark is doing

[Teever]

In the very least it important to punish companies that do shitty things by boycotting them or fining them out of existence if only as a warning to prevent other companies from doing similar things.

Otherwise it's as simple as everyone standing up from they job and taking one step to the left for an identical position at a other company for us to all just absolve them of responsibility and corrective punishment.

[ben_w]

If that’s your goal, surely it’s better to make board members personally liable for certain things? Or even investors, though perhaps at a different level and probably only the major ones. “Limited liability” doesn’t have to mean “absolutely never liable”.

[mcculley]

We should reconsider the entire notion of the limited liability entity. Everyone who profits from the tobacco industry should be potentially liable for their actions.

I am amused every time I hear concerns about AI alignment and the threat of the paperclip optimizer. We already have malevolent entities working towards goals antagonistic to humans: corporations. Soon we will have AI running them entirely.

[ben_w]

You wouldn't be the first to make that comparison. But while the similarities are clear, AI may optimise bad outcomes much faster and much more ruthlessly than a corporation.

[Teever]

Why not all those things?

[cyanydeez]

Altria is an immoral company.

Full stop. End of line.

[heartbreak]

Pretty sure Bayer is arguing a case before SCOTUS in this session trying to dodge product liability because Roundup causes non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Not sure why you think Altria, Bayer, Nestle, etc. would suddenly change their ways.

[BurningFrog]

I think of this as "anthropomorphizing companies".

Another common theme is "Company X did work for Nazi Germany!", as if anyone involved in that is still around.

[Gordonjcp]

> You see kind of a similar thing with Monsanto (now Bayer) where someone drops into a conversation about GM crops

But Monsanto are doing the same thing. You've been sold the story about "cow farts are killing the planet" and "being vegan is healthier", but where does all the plant-based food come from? GM soya by Monsanto. And to grow GM soya you need to blast every trace of life out of the soil with herbicides and pesticides from Monsanto, and you need to obliterate all the beasties that might attack it with insecticides from Monsanto.

Follow the money. Monsanto is paying people to tell you to buy their stuff because it's supposed to be good for the planet. It's not, it's good for Monsanto.

[mahogany]

Can you elaborate on how this theory would help Monsanto more than the status quo? Much more soy is processed into animal feed (~75%) than is eaten by humans directly as plant-based foods (~7%). Given that the soy -> animal -> human pipeline is less efficient calorically than soy -> human, it seems to me that the status quo sells more soy.

Also, this part:

> where does all the plant-based food come from? GM soya by Monsanto.

is plainly false. There are many more plant-based protein sources other than soy.

However, I do agree with you that relying heavily on Monsanto for (any of) these uses is not good, and overusing their products is likely damaging our soils and ecosystem.

[dionidium]

Clearly we're off topic now, but if you actually look at what farmers have to say about Monsanto almost all the complaints boil down to, "Monsanto has some rules we don't like, but what can we do? Their seeds produce the greatest yields, so we're forced to buy them!"

Obviously farmers wish they could get a better deal on their seeds, but nobody is forcing them to use Monsanto. They use Monsanto crops because the technology works.

[Gordonjcp]

You've got it backwards. Farmers want to make more money from what they grow, but supermarkets push the price down. Look at milk, for example - big supermarket chains pay farmers just barely above cost for milk at the farm gate and sell it at barely above cost as a kind of loss leader. What option do farmers have but to sell it, make fuck all off it, and try to work as cost-effectively as possible?

If you buy food from the supermarket, you're contributing to the decline of the planet's ecology, because it's the profitable thing to do.

[kragen]

This is a fully general criticism of competitive markets and is not limited to supermarkets. It applies with equal force to farmers, grain elevators, shippers, fertilizer makers, and (as you do note) the supermarkets' customers. You might argue that it applies with greater force to Monsanto (because they have government-granted monopolies on particular seeds) and to supermarket consumers (because they are not buying supplies for a product they are selling and can therefore choose to pay more).