Because "make decisions that harm people" is vague, and criminal codes should be explicit and clear? Who the fuck would want to do business if someone can arbitrarily claim they broke some vague law that most surely would not get applied fairly and equally? It's a terrible idea.
> Because "make decisions that harm people" is vague, and criminal codes should be explicit and clear?
Nobody was proposing that "make decisions that harm people" should be the wording of the criminal code. Obviously nobody's drafting legal language to be passed as law on Hacker News.
We're discussing, at a high level, the concept of holding people responsible for their actions. If a concrete example would help you, consider the Ford Pinto case, where people committed murder (a law that's already on the books, in clear language) and didn't go to jail for it because it was behind the veil of a corporation.
> Who the fuck would want to do business if someone can arbitrarily claim they broke some vague law that most surely would not get applied fairly and equally?
Oh no, what will we do without sociopaths in charge of the economy? Who will want money if they can't harm other people to get it?
Maybe it's just me, but I feel like if people decide not to go into business because their business doesn't work without harming people, that's a good thing?
If you're worried about people being treated unfairly, why are you completely ignoring everything that's being said about businesses harming workers and customers? Why are you only worried that the rich and powerful might be treated unfairly, despite a complete lack of historical precedent for that happening?
Sure, of a law is on the books, then hold people responsible. But we are talking about 3rd party printer ink here. Why is criminality and jail even being mentioned at all?
"Destruction of property" is a law on the books in some form in pretty much every jurisdiction[1].
When you sell a printer to someone, it's no longer your property, it's their property, and if you destroy it, that's destruction of property.
Arguably there's also some cyber crimes involved here as well.
If I hacked into your printer and bricked it, I'd go to jail, no question. Why is HP above the law in your mind, when they did it on a much larger scale?
that's simply how civile law, the most popular legal system in the World, works: the trial establishes if the company harmed people and decides if the decision makers are to be punished or not.
Nothing hard about it.
OTOH the way corporate law is applied today is neither fair or applied equally and it mostly harms people and benefit corporations, I don't see a problem if we reverse the outcome
less corporations that operate on higher ethical standards sounds like a win-win to me
