Re:AT&T Case Asks High Court to Assign Privacy Rights to Com...
by HeyLaughingBoy on Wednesday January 19, 2011 @01:53PM
(#2120789)
It's easy to make a case that "SOMEONE should pay" if you cherrypick examples but most cases aren't that simple.
What if you make pacemakers that save millions of lives but one day there's a software update that ends up killing a thousand people? Who's the "SOMEONE that should pay?" The developer who coded the bug? The analyst who misunderstood the use case and wrote the wrong requirement? The Quality Assurance team that tested the code and said it was A-OK? The software department head who signed off on the release?
In the real world, the cause of most lethal mistakes are shades of gray, not black and white as you imply.
But don't you think when there is a decision to pursue an extremely risky behavior (ie. drilling in the gulf, running private armies in foreign battles, selling derivatives) and when that risk literally blows up and kills people, SOMEONE should pay? Perhaps the people who pushed for that risk?
I mean there are other ways to make money that do not endanger lives, these people decided that there was zero risk to them personally so to heck with playing it safe and instead risked other people.