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236 sats \ 2 replies \ @Lost_dogz 27 Jan \ parent \ on: Bitcoiner and Socialist bitcoin
It may cripple the reputation in a location that could be 1000 miles away, 30 years from now and for a group that are not customers.
As one example, because of corporates like 3M, BASF and DuPont PFAS levels in rainwater everywhere, even in Antarctica(!), are now above levels considered safe for humans to drink. The people responsible, who knowingly took the decision to dump toxic waste, have retired as millionaires if not billionaires.
Free market incentives don't always work perfectly, and it's only realistic to acknowledge that externalization of costs to other places, times and groups is a problem
Csn you give one such example that wasn't subsidized or backed up by the legal system?
As mentioned by someone else, reputation/honor of an individual or a business can be the key to it's success or rapid downfall. Specially today with information travelling at the speed of light, there is 0 chances anyone can do such sizable damage, even in the middle of nowhere, without someone recording the fact and spreading it around the planrt in 5 minutes.
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This has nothing to do with subsidies or a public legal system. Externalization of costs is a fundamental issue and is as old as time. Anyone who thinks honor outcompetes greed in humans has never lived in the real world.
Society had to suffer tens of thousands of early deaths and spend hundreds of millions on environmental, medical and epidemiological research to establish the links between PFAS, parkinson's disease and certain cancers, after a few decades. Multiple Big Chem CEO's knew this all along from their own research, yet choose to keep it quiet. Yet, even today when this is public information, the reputation of these companies doesn't suffer the slightest. And even if it would, a simple M&A or rebrand will fix it (e.g. Monsanto)
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