[dvt]

> So, it's fine as long as it's legal, then?

> Love that way of thinking.

I mean.. yeah, kinda'? We live in a society made up of laws, that's kind of the premise. So if we don't think something is fine, we can make it illegal (and we often do).

It's a pretty good way of thinking methinks, what's your alternative?

[krsw]

It kind of falls apart when large companies can lobby and bribe the people in charge of writing and enacting laws to make exception and write around their problem areas. Or can just make strategic donations to ease any risks of enforcement. Or collude to make sure the fine for whatever infraction is well below the profit margin of doing said infraction.

I don't care to argue semantics, just pointing out your reply was as hollow as your criticism to the person saying legal doesn't mean safe. It's a pretty reasonable thing to draw attention to methinks...

[grogg]

The issue lies in how the laws are decided and by whom.

[xg15]

It's also a complete fiction in a world dominated by commercial interests, entrenched lobby groups, corrupt politicians and regulatory capture.

[gdudeman]

Is there an alternative?

We live in a much, much cleaner world than we did 50 years ago. Legislation and environmental rules have worked. There are some areas where it could obviously be better, but also some areas where regulation is too strict (blocking housing, renewables, transit) and the system is evolving to address those.

I think the loss of local media has made it harder for misdeeds to come to light, but I don't want to throw up my hands and cede everything to commercial interests et al.

[xg15]

I think a look at other countries would do well. There are many with much tighter regulations (e.g. EU countries, Singapore, Japan) and they seem to have good results with that.

> We live in a much, much cleaner world than we did 50 years ago. Legislation and environmental rules have worked.

I think prevention of pollution is one area where very tight regulation is absolutely needed, and this seems to be an argument for that.

Of course regulation can be weaponized and used as a tool to serve entrenched interests as well - but this is then more a problem with the overall political system. Also, I think a proof that this is the case is necessary instead of assuming it by default.

[fuzzy2]

Dunno, maybe strive to release no pollutants at all? Then we wouldn't need all the pesky big government overreach.

[jakelsaunders94]

Taking this as a good faith engineering argument. What does that mean? What do you constitute a pollutant and how much is zero?

I guess as a contrived example your breath releases 40k PPM Co2. Have you tried aiming for no pollution?

The reality is we make things which involve pollutants, which we create laws to govern the safe disposal of. Engineers optimise for these constraints the same way you do. You wouldn’t have one k8s pod per request to ‘strive to keep the response times as low as possible’.

[Symmetry]

In all of human history nobody has ever had a glass of water with literally no arsenic in it, there are trace amounts in every lake, river, and well. Even the ultra-purified water used in bleeding edge semiconductor fabrication has a lot more than 1 atom of arsenic per glass. In the far future humanity might obtain the technology to create water with literally no pollutants in it but that age has yet to arrive.

[forshaper]

How would you do that, assuming you wanted to keep up the material standard of living that the people you care about are used to?

[testing22321]

I assume you hold yourself to that same standard?

Your car, heating, toilet and soap and all the rest release zero pollution, right?

[goosejuice]

Um, I'm pretty sure we can all get behind corps striving for the ideal. Fines align incentives.

Are you actually suggesting that we rely on the good will of a for profit corp? When has that ever worked?

[fuzzy2]

GP suggests that it's fine if it's not forbidden yet. My (sarcastic) suggestion is that it is not, because corporations never act in good faith.

[baggy_trough]

To exist is to pollute.

[xg15]

This seems to be the credo of too much of the tech industry lately.

[bayindirh]

But you can pollute sustainably. e.g.: Composting, biodegradable materials, etc.

or unsustainably: e.g.: PFAS. For bonus points you can do internal research and hide the reports detailing the effects accurately.

[alterom]

>I mean.. yeah, kinda'? We live in a society made up of laws, that's kind of the premise.

It might be news to you, but the laws don't dictate what's fine, and what isn't.

Aside from things like slavery being legal and homosexuality being illegal in the past, I'll note that it's perfectly legal for you to drink bleach, but it wouldn't really be fine for you to do that.

(I hope we can agree that advising people to do something "fine" isn't rude, but telling someone to go drink bleach would be) .

> So if we don't think something is fine, we can make it illegal (and we often do).

So, to boot, "it's fine as long as it's legal" doesn't apply to those things, youthinks.

Also, "we" is a peculiar pronoun that needs a lot of expansion, considering that the "we" negatively affected by "not fine" things isn't the same "we" that benefits from them, and it's the latter "we" that has direct influence on legislation.

Some interesting terms to read up on include "negative externality" and "corruption" (assuming youreads).

>It's a pretty good way of thinking methinks, what's your alternative?

If we turn to historical examples, the French Revolution certainly provides an example for alternative ways to resolve disparities between what's legal and what's fine.

There are plenty of others, but that question wasn't asked in good faith, methinks, and so doesn't deserve a more in-depth answer.