Tacier posted:

Failure to prevent a spark during activities that don't traditionally cause sparks isn't carelessness. Now if you're in the middle of your tinderbox backyard going to town on a chunk of metal with an angle grinder, that might be a different story.

Dead Reckoning posted:

E: or if, living on property that was clearly ready to burn at the slightest spark, he had some sort of mitigation or fire suppression plan beyond "Yee haw, four wheelin!"

quote:

He then tried to use water from the water tank to douse the fire, but the polyurethane tubing became “kinked from the heat of the fire and restricted the water flow,” the report said.

From there, he “then tried to use a 1˝-inch PVC water line connected to the water tanks, but was unable to get enough water pressure to reach the fire.”

So finally, he jumped in his four-wheeler and tried to get in front of the fire traveling uphill, so he could kick dirt on it with his tires, but in the process, “he lost control of his four-wheeler and had to jump off.”

That’s when he ran back down to his house, called 911 and turned on his water pumps for the firefighters who would come, the report said.

VikingofRock posted:

He did, it just wasn't bolded in The Glumslinger's post (presumably because it wasn't as funny):

Dead Reckoning posted:

Morbus posted:

someone should arrest whoever made that hammer asap

VikingofRock posted:

He did, it just wasn't bolded in The Glumslinger's post (presumably because it wasn't as funny):

Keyser_Soze posted:

I just feel that the missing part in that story is him pouring a few gallons of fuel onto the nest. Rebar doesn't scare off hornets, it just makes them angrier.

Keyser_Soze posted:

I just feel that the missing part in that story is him pouring a few gallons of fuel onto the nest. Rebar doesn't scare off hornets, it just makes them angrier.

Leperflesh posted:

We have a concept in criminal law called mens rea, meaning, state of mind. It fundamentally underlines the concept of culpability. It says that what actually happened, while important, is mitigated or exacerbated by what the person intended or was thinking. This is the only difference between different degrees of murder, for example; premeditation makes the killing worse than if it was an impulse, spur of the moment thing; and that in turn is still worse than if it was unintended but caused by recklessness, and still less if it was merely negligence. Negligence is the lowest form of culpability; beyond that, a person may have done an act, but they're not guilty of a crime, because they acted in a reasonable manner that any normal person might have acted.

This is correct and good. Although it's not always easy for a courtroom to determine the state of someone's mind, their actions often telegraph it. In this case, that farmer was, at worst, negligent in some way. The courts often use a "reasonable man" theory to test that idea: would a reasonable person, equipped with the knowledge that a normal person or a person in their profession or position would have, have known better or acted in a better way?

In this case, you could argue that a reasonable person would have understood that there was a fire danger; but, most people probably don't consider that hammering a stake in the ground could cause a fire. I doubt his actions would be judged as rising to the level of even negligence, and certainly nowhere near deliberate action. If he was found guilty of anything, you'd expect in a case like this he'd get the bare minimum penalty for committing a misdemeanor. Perhaps a fine or something.

Regardless: our "current theories of negligence" are pretty solidly spot on, when the courts and laws operate as written and intended. There are miscarriages of justice all the time, of course, but those failings are not remedied by throwing random innocent mistake-makers into jail for decades. That's not justice, and it's a piss-poor way to try to steer society into being more responsible, too.

Grand Prize Winner posted:

we need to dig up james fremont and do a cadaver synod

silence_kit posted:

Leperflesh, this idea is increasingly becoming not a very commonly accepted ethical principle.

VikingofRock posted:

He did, it just wasn't bolded in The Glumslinger's post (presumably because it wasn't as funny):

Turtlicious posted:

I've been kicked out of that starbucks before because my smell offended customers, and when I said I just wanted to use the restroom I was told no because a different homeless person did drugs in there once. This was in 2010, 2009?

Though the whole point is moot because I think they put bathroom in the red line now?

Megaman's Jockstrap posted:

Freak accidents don't exist and if something bad happens you need to pin it on somebody no matter how tenuous and then cut their loving heads off in full view of the public.

Only then will the Ancient Gods be appeased.

Cup Runneth Over posted:

I think that this take of "there should be consequences for events you had absolutely no control over" perfectly exemplifies the mindset of people like you who are more concerned with punishment and retribution than justice. Though again, I'm being generous in assuming that this is truly what you believe and not a deliberately rear end-backwards opinion you've whipped out to ensure that every post you make in this thread is offensive to the senses. I truly wish that the mods would finally step up and ban you from this thread like they banned you from the Current Events thread. Also,

Sydin posted:

It's super cool that CPUC caved and let PG&E go forward with the solution of "we'll just shut power off for millions upon millions of paying customers when it gets hot and windy while continuing to neglect our aging infrastructure" instead of putting the execs in jail and nationalizing all of their California assets.

VideoGameVet posted:

Woa woa, wait a sec. here. PG&E?

The Pacific Gas and Electric Corporation (NYSE:PCG) is facing upwards of $30 billion in liabilities for its alleged fault in dozens of wildfires between 2017 and 2018, including November’s ‘Camp Fire’ – now the single most destructive wildfire in California’s history. This is a big problem for a utility that has a net present value of roughly $12 billion and only $2 billion worth of insurance coverage. It is also a blow for California’s proclaimed transition to renewable energy by 2045.

...

Long before the failure suspected in the Paradise fire, a company email had noted that some of PG&E’s structures in the area, known for fierce winds, were at risk of collapse. It reported corrosion of one tower so severe that it endangered crews trying to repair the tower. The company’s own guidelines put Tower 27/222 a quarter-century beyond its useful life — but the tower remained.

-------

Yeah, there should be criminal consequences for this.

Leperflesh posted:

They should absolutely 100% be doing both, not either/or. Even best case scenario, PG&E is decades behind on maintenance of thousands and thousands of miles of lines, and regardless of who belongs in jail, being fully willing to shut down lines when they overheat instead of worrying about paying customers is a critical requirement to avoid or minimize future fires like the Camp fire.


Like they've had multiple fires now that could have been avoided if they'd been quicker to shut down lines instead of worrying about the negative press and angry customers involved with shutting power off.

Leperflesh posted:

They should absolutely 100% be doing both, not either/or. Even best case scenario, PG&E is decades behind on maintenance of thousands and thousands of miles of lines, and regardless of who belongs in jail, being fully willing to shut down lines when they overheat instead of worrying about paying customers is a critical requirement to avoid or minimize future fires like the Camp fire.


Like they've had multiple fires now that could have been avoided if they'd been quicker to shut down lines instead of worrying about the negative press and angry customers involved with shutting power off.

Sydin posted:

I was lead to believe the issue was more their unwillingness to replace ancient and way past rated-service time infrastructure and lines, and being lazy about trimming and brush removal near high voltage. I admit though that I've only read second hand news reports about the investigations, not the actual investigations themselves. Was it proven some of these fires would have happened even with proper maintenance and infrastructure, just because temperatures got to a point where it was unsafe for any line to run at all? That doesn't sound like something out of the realm of possibility I guess, I just hadn't heard it to this point.

Leperflesh posted:

PG&E officialls wilfully and repeatedly refused for decades to do enough maintenance. After the san mateo gas explosion, PG&E established a maintenance budget, but then failed to even spend the money they had budgeted, preferring to return profits to the shareholders. The executives involved in those decisions in my opinion committed crimes, and should be prosecuted: their decisions killed people.

Irrespective of those failures, however, right now today we live in a situation where there are thousands of miles of lines that become dangerous when they get too hot, which is a function of both the weather and demand on those lines. PG&E should shut down lines when they get too hot, and in the past, we've seen cases where they were warned by monitoring equipment or by phone calls from witnesses that there was a problem, and they did not act quickly enough to shut lines down. The correct and safe approach is a proactive one, where lines at risk are shut down before they start sagging into trees, showering sparks on the ground, etc. Preventative blackouts suck rear end for customers and are a consequence of blatant malfeasance by PG&E executives and, by extension, the fallout of the original decisions surrounding making PG&E a for-profit, publicly traded company. But it's stupid to demand that they stop doing it now, or even to sarcastically criticize them now for doing it. They need to do it, people die when they don't.

We deserve properly maintained infrastructure, and we don't have it today, and even in the absolute best case scenario (the state takes over the company, zeroes out the stock, and pours billions into deferred maintenance) it'd still be decades before we get it. In the meantime, yes, they should shut down lines when they get too hot, to prevent fires.

Leperflesh posted:

I'm not sure if there's been a survey or something, but if that's true, it's unfortunate.

nrook posted:

I was under the impression it was becoming less popular as a legal principle, because for white-collar crimes it's a pain in the rear end to prove.

For ethical concerns it doesn't matter how hard it is to establish, so it's not as big a deal there. And if you don't like it, I think you wind up having to bite some really wacky bullets, right? Like "Intelligent people are capable of being more ethical than the average person".

VideoGameVet posted:

At Hollywood and Venice? I haven't seen it. Hmm....

Turtlicious posted:

uh yeah, you wouldn't because there is no Hollywood and Venice in LA???? They literally run parallel to each other. Do you not even fuckin live here?

Leperflesh posted:

"Strict liability" crimes, such as many statutory crimes, often ignore or exclude mens rea, that's true. The one everyone is familiar with, statutory rape, is an example: it doesn't matter, and the court isn't allowed to consider, any factors having to do with intent; for example, if the underage person had a fake ID showing they were of age, so the older person thought they were in the clear; the consent involved; etc. The only thing the court can do with statutory rape is determine the facts - if the facts meet the criteria, guilty, that's it, intent can't be considered. There are a bunch of strict liability crimes, however, and many of them were written not by legislators, but by regulators creating statutory laws. One example I read about, that stuck with me as emblematic of short-sighted strict-liability resulting in injustice: regulators might create a fine for trafficking in the parts of endangered animals, without providing for a mens rea defense; then some random person visiting a park picks up a feather off the ground, it's from a spotted owl, a zealous cop and prosecutor press charges, and bam that person is fined $10,000 or something, nevermind they made a totally innocent decision that the bureaucrats writing the law never contemplated. There's no jury either, in many of these statutory crimes, so jury nullification often isn't even an option, not that that really happens much anyway even when it is.

I think it's good to go beyond Wikipedia to understand this stuff - I've done a fair bit of reading, although I'm not a lawyer - but this strikes me as a good summary:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mens_rea#United_States

So "less popular" is kind of true, in the sense that the modern penal code takes a more refined and carefully parsed interpretation of mens rea. But, I wasn't sure if you were saying that even this approach to the concept of culpability was going out of style or becoming unpopular among legislators or law professors or something? That may well be true: I'm just an amateur with some casual interest in the law, I'm not like, tuned in to the current state of legal theory. But I'd find that pretty disappointing. I think that when you penalize people for doing "bad things" when they had no intention or even negligence, you're just exercising power for the sake of power, appeasing the demands of the mob for results, and grinding innocent people up under the wheels of expediency and political campaign "tough on crime" points. That's gross and IMO actively harmful to society, because when people figure out that they're living under a capricious and arbitrary oppression, they either give up on obeying the rules and you get deeply ingrained corruption and paranoia, or they bust out the pitchforks and guillotines. Or sometimes both at once.

Admiral Ray posted:

We all hold the smoker that throws their lit cigarette butt out of the car window responsible for the fires they cause despite the fact that most of the time it doesn't matter that they do it.