Self-Regulation

some people died but i got rich. sue me.
- Sues you and wins but it only costs the company 5% of their normal monthly profits
  
  And then the company never pays and you have to sue again but you are now too broke and tired.
- Some of you may die, but that's a risk I'm willing to take!

And the US "Supreme" Court: looks great, let's do more of that!
- ... we regulate ourselves too and nothing has gone wrong with that!

You should see the lines go up though!

The problem with using the Love Canal was that it was the local government that really fucked up.
For the time, Hooker Chemical Company disposed of the chemical waste in a somewhat responsible way; a clay lined canal that they later topped with clay to prevent water infiltration. If the town wasn't dead set in developing the land, we likely would have never heard of Love Canal.
- Yeah that's immediately what I thought whem reading it. The company did the right thing, it's the government who wouldn't listen to reason.
  
  The company did the dumping and then sold it off for $1 for a school to be built upon it. They were held liable. They also created other environmental disasters elsewhere. White Lake Michigan, for instance.
  Hooker Chemical Company gave no fucks, and should not be given tacit approval or any credit.

Second picture should be Bhopal.
- Americans would shrug it off as a foreign problem. We're idiots like that.
- Unión Carbide. I was very young when that made headlines.

I actually grew up next to the Cuyahoga in the '70s, and it's mind-boggling how disgusting that river was. Used tires and rusted steel chemical barrels everywhere, and the surface covered with a sheen of oil or who knows what the fuck it was. The concept of a beautiful rivers edge was laughable back then, as the river was lined with various plants and factories with big drainage pipes jutting out over the water discharging ... stuff. And this was about 30 miles from the part that actually caught fire (which was in Cleveland). I really don't understand why that river wasn't just on fire all the time.
My parents founded an organization that cleaned the river up (at least the part of it in our town) and turned it into a beautiful park and walking trail. I'm so proud of them for that, but sadly these victories are never permanent.

I work in aerospace regulation and the latest media coverage has been quite upsetting for me. There is a huge difference between delegation (how the aerospace regulator gives approval power to people in companies) and self-regulation, but I'm not clever enough to summarise them in this format. So instead I'd like to share two facts that can summarize the outcome instead.
An airliner is a chunk of metal full of people 30,000 ft in sky propelled to near the speed of sound by burning kerosene in a tube. With all of that is safer than driving in your car or going for a swim. That's aerospace regulation at work, and it has always included delegation. It's almost the safest industry there is even when you include Boeing's criminal fraud and attempts to abuse the system.
Boeing had to ground their fleet for years and now is being charged with criminal fraud for deceiving the FAA (the aerospace regulatory body in the USA). Self regulated industries rarely face consequences.
I'm not saying it's perfect, and I wish I could explain the process better but I think it's very effective and has a proven track record across the world. Almost all modern countries use the same regulatory framework because it delivers incredible safety at a reasonable (by aerospace standards) cost to the government.
I hope more industries transition to a similar framework. If we had an FAA for finance and environmental protection, I think we could end scam shell companies and illegal pollution in a decade. But it would probably be "big government socialism" so there isn't much hope.
- I think the narrative is about how Boeing used to be the gold standard, but with money grabs for years the check is now coming due - hopefully before its too late & there is a crash.

What is an example of something that is not self-regulated that was worked out well?
Is the pharmaceutical industry self-regulated?
- What is an example of something that is not self-regulated that was worked out well?
  EU food industry works pretty well. Incidences of food-borne disease, contaminated food, etc are very rare, and you can generally trust the label says exactly what's in the food with confidence.
  The regulations themselves are very complex, change depending on new evidence, and include all sorts of rule changes for events that impact the food industry.
  
  Don't forget basically all science, most of the actual groundbreaking work is done using public funds; private interests only step and once the underlying theory is already proven.
- Seat belt regulations saved a lot of lives despite massive objections and many attempts from both drivers and manufacturers to work around the regulation. https://www.history.com/news/seat-belt-laws-resistance
- To all the people out there that hate questions so much and downvote people who ask them: What happened to you that made you so angry about people wanting to acquire information?
  To all the informative people who answer questions, thank you!
  
  Because we know from long experience that these questions aren't made in good faith.
- The legal profession is self-regulated.
- Effectively yes. The Sackler family proved that. Regulators let them kill thousands of people. It took the criminal justice system tracking the pills back to have consequences and accountability.
- No.

That's cute, now do governments.
- Lol bro thinks acts of war are the same thing passing laws.
  
  Truly, the most libertarian.
  
  Environmental destruction because of greed: inexcusable.
  Environmental destruction because you don't like those bastards over there: totally acceptable.
- You cant stop a national government from making weapons and conducting war. A national government, however, should regulate corporations in its territory or sphere of influence to prevent attrocities and tragedies the corporations would conduct. You do not yet live in an idealic valley of plenty where there are corporations but not a government, so you must lend your voice; do you want one Tyranny Machine to run or should there be two Tyranny Machines and the second one has no oversight or regulation from the appropriate parties. Remember that when the government turns on its Tyranny Machine at least competing governments can oppose it. If you are not careful the Free Market Beast will allow many Tyranny Machines to run simultaneously.
  
  At least you're smart enough to realize you're putting a tyranny machine in charge of regulating tyranny machines...
- Let's start with the Taft-Hartley Act, then move on to private property privileges, and then pause to assess.