Well, okay. But China also has a lot of environmental and governance disasters. One thing lawyers help do is protect normal people from large companies and government officials who exceed their mandate.

Would you be okay with companies near you just dumping toxic waste into the local rivers?

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dumah 21 hours ago | parent | next [-]

No, on the balance it is lawyers who protect companies from the people they harm and lawyers who constitute the government officials who perpetually exceed and expand their mandates.

Most of the senate are lawyers and it’s the most frequent occupation of a legislator.

	▲	laughing_man 19 hours ago \| parent [-]
		You're letting "perfect" be the enemy of "good" here. If the alternative is China, where a mid-level bureaucrat can decide the public good outweighs your health, I'll take the lawyer-filled US.

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tstrimple a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't know what you're talking about. That is the current reality in the US. We have no recourse.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/disastrous-figures-show-poverty-i...

> Runoff and soil erosion continually pour dangerous chemicals into bodies of water statewide. The pollution starves fish of oxygen. It causes organic material to grow that threatens to sicken humans unless drinking water providers spend huge sums on decontamination. It similarly makes water unsafe for recreation. This spring’s heavy rainfall ended years of drought — and it also, as predicted, led to levels of nitrates in rivers above or near the highest on record.

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gnerd00 a day ago | parent | next [-]

> We have no recourse.

This is just misinformation. This is an international board. Many readers will take this as fact. There are courts and there are laws on the books, and yes many cases are enforced. Not "enough" for some, "too much" for others.. it is a "Goldilocks Problem" .. comparing the situation across the USA does not make a lot of sense either, since State's Rights historically have played a big role.

	▲	tstrimple 20 hours ago \| parent [-]
		What a crock of shit. Yeah, it's an international board but we're talking about the ability of countries to support AI development. And outside of the US and China there is basically nothing going on. Maybe your country doesn't allow rampant pollution to be dumped into water streams. That's great! But then your country matters fuck all to the state of AI development. But it's absolute bullshit to pretend that China allows rampant ecological destruction in their pursuit of goals and then pretend that the US is constrained by some pollution restrictions. It has zero basis in reality and contributes nothing to the discussion. You are the one supporting misinformation.

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laughing_man a day ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't know what you're talking about either. Farm runoff is a whole different beast than mercury compounds or cyanide.