<story><title>Monsanto Effort to Defund Cancer Researchers</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2019/08/23/monsanto-republicans-cancer-research/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwawaywindev</author><text>It’s an economic problem that boils down to not putting a high enough price on negative externalities.</text></item><item><author>NPMaxwell</author><text>Roundup, asbestos, leaded gas, and lots of other engineering products say to me that the industry&amp;#x2F;culture of engineering has a problem.  I think that problem is not engineering itself, but emerges when engineering is mixed with current MBA culture of stockholder value rather than stakeholder value.  Obvious, and obviously worthless, strategies are to add BS &amp;quot;ethics&amp;quot; courses to engineering programs.  It&amp;#x27;s possible to turn this ship.  I don&amp;#x27;t yet have ideas for how it&amp;#x27;s actually done.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>PeterStuer</author><text>The idea that a regulator can pre-run the economic actors to price in all known and unknown negative externalities before transactions occur is disingenuous. Competitively breeding an evolving  species of ever more creative amoral actors seeking to concentrate benefits and externalize negatives and then somehow hoping you can contain them is madness. In an environment were the &amp;#x27;guards&amp;#x27; can and frequently do swap places with the inmates it is beyond madness.&lt;p&gt;Furthermore, even if that were true there is nothing to stop a malevolent actor, either deliberate, by ignorance, or by lack of better alternatives, to just eat the cost.</text></comment>
<story><title>Monsanto Effort to Defund Cancer Researchers</title><url>https://theintercept.com/2019/08/23/monsanto-republicans-cancer-research/</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>throwawaywindev</author><text>It’s an economic problem that boils down to not putting a high enough price on negative externalities.</text></item><item><author>NPMaxwell</author><text>Roundup, asbestos, leaded gas, and lots of other engineering products say to me that the industry&amp;#x2F;culture of engineering has a problem.  I think that problem is not engineering itself, but emerges when engineering is mixed with current MBA culture of stockholder value rather than stakeholder value.  Obvious, and obviously worthless, strategies are to add BS &amp;quot;ethics&amp;quot; courses to engineering programs.  It&amp;#x27;s possible to turn this ship.  I don&amp;#x27;t yet have ideas for how it&amp;#x27;s actually done.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>52-6F-62</author><text>Agreed. This is a major problem in the energy sector as well. I regularly hear &amp;quot;oil and gas are cheap energy compared to the alternatives&amp;quot; but they&amp;#x27;re really not. They&amp;#x27;re just punting the real costs down a generation or two.</text></comment>