What is the most evil corporation in the world?

[Habbaku]

And toxic waste dumping

40 years ago. 

[Neil]

The Pinkertons is also a good one, but I don't know if they are still even in business.

You related to McClellan, and still upset about those inflated Confederate troop estimates?



Actually, I assume that you're referring to the use of Pinkerton agents in putting down labor unrest in the late 19th-early 20th century. 

And yeah, I believe that the Pinkerton agency is still in business, though I don't care enough to actually check.

If by "Putting down", you mean murdering people then yes.

Meh.  It was war.

[Siege]

What is the most evil corporation in the world?

Paradox, hands down.

[CountDeMoney]

Most incompetent? Any American power company. That one on the east coast especially.

Amen, yo.

FPL is a very well-run company.

Yes, they are.  Why the State of Maryland wouldn't allow them to buy us in '97, but let the next Enron do it instead, is still baffling.

Meh, I don't care anymore.  I want my Obama Bucks.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't know if Exxon is the most evil of the non-state big oil companies, or just the most honest. They would unambiguously trigger some people's "evil" meter because they are deliberately anti-gay rights. Mobil had HR policies in place that allowed gay employees to put their SO on their company health insurance and make them beneficiaries of various other corporate benefits. When they merged to form XOM, Exxon's management explicitly struck that part of the employee benefits out.

But when it comes to things like environmental disasters, BP really did put a ton of effort into trying to save face and that $20bn relief fund is pretty legitimate too. When Exxon-Valdez happened Exxon was mostly concerned with trying to argue they deserved no blame, contesting any legal efforts to make them pay any penalties or reparations (for decades now), and basically hand waving it away as a fluke caused by a drunk.

Exxon had some legit arguments with some of that, but BP took the more correct approach--big bad fuckup, put hat in hand and try to make it right.

Exxon also doesn't even really try to give that fig leaf to green energy most other big multinational energy companies are doing, they basically openly say "fossil fuels are the future and we want to drill even more natural gas and oil than we already have, we're good for 50-60 years by far until we should even think about green energy--and by the way, we even believe in anthropogenic global warming but we think scientists should be figuring out how to cope with it not trying to get in the way of burning more fossil fuels."

I genuinely don't think XOM deserves to be considered "most evil" but they really do have PR that just makes them come off like they're saying "we know we're considered the villain and we kinda dig it." But I guess that is part of the benefits of being a big energy company who sells a fungible commodity and has virtually no direct exposure to retail customers--you don't actually have to give a shit what ordinary people think of your company.

[OttoVonBismarck]

With Monsanto if your problems are "franken foods" you're an idiot worse than evolution deniers or young earth creationists, those fears are not based in science.

If your problem is how they've gone after farmers for using Monsanto seeds when the farmers really just had some innocent cross pollination happen then I'd argue it's a mixed bag. If Monsanto is really going around suing all kinds of farmers just because of some accidental cross pollination, I agree that is kind of shitty. But I'm not 100% sure that actually happens. I've read several news articles where people really want that to be what happens, but the few actual cases (that actually get to court) that I've read about the farmers were unambiguously in the wrong.

In one of them the farmer tried to say it was cross pollination but there was damning evidence he had some Monsanto seeds he was accumulating year to year in direct violation of the license agreement he signed. You can argue the license agreement is bullshit (and it seems that way to many, why can't he save his seeds from season to season?), but if Monsanto has a legal license agreement in which you pay periodically and do not have the right to use those seeds after license expiration and you sign that document then violate it, I have a lot less sympathy for you than an innocent victim of cross-pollination.

Another case I read, the farmer knew his plants had been cross-pollinated with Monsanto seed, and then there was damning evidence that he intentionally nurtured and cultivated those plants and used them to create his own ever-growing supply of Monsanto's product. By the time he got caught he had basically converted huge portions of his crop to using Monsanto's product against patent law.

[jimmy olsen]

Another case I read, the farmer knew his plants had been cross-pollinated with Monsanto seed, and then there was damning evidence that he intentionally nurtured and cultivated those plants and used them to create his own ever-growing supply of Monsanto's product. By the time he got caught he had basically converted huge portions of his crop to using Monsanto's product against patent law.

Gene patenting is in and off itself evil and immoral and every company that practices it should burn.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I don't necessarily agree with that, but even if I did to me it's kinda like the spitball. Was always a dirty thing, but before it was explicitly ruled against the rules I can't really negatively judge someone for taking advantage. Nor do I judge the players who were "grandfathered" in and continued to use it for a few years afterward. If you aren't pushing the rules you aren't in the game.

[dps]

IMO if you have a problem with patenting genes, then your problem is with the courts and/or the legislature, not individual companies.

[Neil]

IMO if you have a problem with patenting genes, then your problem is with the courts and/or the legislature, not individual companies.

Who do you think bribes the courts and the legislature?  Besides, even if an evil thing is legal, it can still be evil.  The idea that the law and morality are one and the same is one of the great mental plagues of our time.  I blame the gays.

[Martinus]

IMO if you have a problem with patenting genes, then your problem is with the courts and/or the legislature, not individual companies.

Who do you think bribes the courts and the legislature?  Besides, even if an evil thing is legal, it can still be evil.  The idea that the law and morality are one and the same is one of the great mental plagues of our time.  I blame the gays.

Exactly (except the gays part). Only because something is legal, it does not necessarily mean it is ethical. It's funny how so many "Christians" have such an utterly immoral outlook on the world as dps.

In 1860 he would have been defending slave traders (including those who would dump the cargo into the sea when it "goes bad" or prices drop) as good, moral Christian folk. After all, they are just using the legal means available to them. This is why I hate worshippers of the dead Jew on a stick.

[Eddie Teach]

Exactly (except the gays part). Only because something is legal, it does not necessarily mean it is ethical. It's funny how so many "Christians" have such an utterly immoral outlook on the world as dps.

In 1860 he would have been defending slave traders (including those who would dump the cargo into the sea when it "goes bad" or prices drop) as good, moral Christian folk. After all, they are just using the legal means available to them. This is why I hate worshippers of the dead Jew on a stick.

The international slave trade was banned in the US in 1807.

[Martinus]

Exactly (except the gays part). Only because something is legal, it does not necessarily mean it is ethical. It's funny how so many "Christians" have such an utterly immoral outlook on the world as dps.

In 1860 he would have been defending slave traders (including those who would dump the cargo into the sea when it "goes bad" or prices drop) as good, moral Christian folk. After all, they are just using the legal means available to them. This is why I hate worshippers of the dead Jew on a stick.

The international slave trade was banned in the US in 1807.

So 1806. 

[jimmy olsen]

IMO if you have a problem with patenting genes, then your problem is with the courts and/or the legislature, not individual companies.

Who do you think bribes the courts and the legislature?  Besides, even if an evil thing is legal, it can still be evil.  The idea that the law and morality are one and the same is one of the great mental plagues of our time.  I blame the gays.

Exactly (except the gays part). Only because something is legal, it does not necessarily mean it is ethical. It's funny how so many "Christians" have such an utterly immoral outlook on the world as dps.

In 1860 he would have been defending slave traders (including those who would dump the cargo into the sea when it "goes bad" or prices drop) as good, moral Christian folk. After all, they are just using the legal means available to them. This is why I hate worshippers of the dead Jew on a stick.

You do realize that Evangelical Christians were the driving force behind the American abolition movement don't you? Without there support slavery would have lasted at least another 50 years.

[dps]

IMO if you have a problem with patenting genes, then your problem is with the courts and/or the legislature, not individual companies.

Who do you think bribes the courts and the legislature?  Besides, even if an evil thing is legal, it can still be evil.  The idea that the law and morality are one and the same is one of the great mental plagues of our time.  I blame the gays.

Exactly (except the gays part). Only because something is legal, it does not necessarily mean it is ethical. It's funny how so many "Christians" have such an utterly immoral outlook on the world as dps.

In 1860 he would have been defending slave traders (including those who would dump the cargo into the sea when it "goes bad" or prices drop) as good, moral Christian folk. After all, they are just using the legal means available to them. This is why I hate worshippers of the dead Jew on a stick.

I'm perfectly capable of making the distinction between what is legal, and what is moral.  And I can be even more nuance than that--there is stuff I think is immoral that I still think should be legal.  Take hate speech.  It's immoral, but IMO it shouldn't be illegal (I think I can honestly say that I've been pretty consistant in my posts over the years in supporting very few limits on free speech).

OTOH, you're right, I do have trouble seeing patenting genes as EVIL per se, but I do have a lot of reservations about it being something that should be legal.  Then again, if I could make one change in our intellectual property laws, I'd start by scaling back the length of time that copywrites stay in effect, not with patents.

You do realize that Evangelical Christians were the driving force behind the American abolition movement don't you? Without there support slavery would have lasted at least another 50 years.

In fairness to Marty, that was generally only true of Evangelical Christians in the north.  Those in the south tended to defend slavery as being sanctioned by the Bible (ignoring that slavery in Biblical times had some notable differences from the form practiced in 18th and 19th Century America).  I guess I should note that the Evangelicals in the north were important in getting rid of slavery in their part of the country.  But then Marty seems to have some trouble realizing that Catholics and Protestants aren't the same, so I hardly expect him to be up on the differences between northern and southern Evangelical Christians prior to 1860.