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Mafia Sinks Ships Containing Toxic Waste
Hugh Pickens writes "For years there have been rumors that the mafia was sinking ships with nuclear and other waste on board as part of a money-making racket. Now, BBC reports on a sunken vessel that has been found 30km off the coast of Italy. Murky pictures taken by a robot camera show the vessel intact, and alongside it are a number of yellow barrels with labels indicating the contents are toxic. The ship's location was revealed by Francesco Fonti, an ex-member of Calabria's feared 'Ndrangheta crime group, who confessed to using explosives to sink this vessel and two others as part of an illegal operation to bypass rules on the disposal of toxic waste. Experts are now examining samples taken from the wreck, and an official says that if the samples prove to be radioactive then a search for up to 30 other sunken vessels believed scuttled by the mafia would begin immediately. 'The Mediterranean is 0.7 percent of the world's seas. If in this tiny portion there are more than 30 (toxic waste) shipwrecks, imagine what there could be elsewhere,' says Silvestro Greco, head of Calabria's environment agency."
Actually organized crime in the US has also been linked to similar dumping, just not on that large a scale.
So then what? Nothing happens to these people? If they are connected to this mess and convicted they should press them into service as part of the clean up process of all this crap. Make them work cleaning up the lethal crap they felt no qualms about exposing everyone else to.
Is it possible that these mafia people are stupid? Imagine we can reprocess nuclear waste, in many of the ways that slashdotters will include below. Now this nuclear waste conveniently stored underwater, is fuel that we can use to power our toys with. This is assuming that there wasn't any damage to the containers, and a big cleanup isn't required. Hopefully, when the world comes to its senses, and makes better use of its resources, we won't have these kinds of problems. (It always drives me crazy that there are organizations that will burn or throw away or sequester potentially useful materials. Sure mercury is poisonous. Extract it from your waste, and sell it to someone that needs it. The same with CO2, and even radon. I wonder about gold production from mining landfills.)
Zhrodague.net - I do projects and stuff too.
This has long been suspected, and there's a connection to Somali piracy. The mysterious blogger "TokyoTom" has an excellent summary of the research indicating that European companies were using the lack of a government in Somali to dump toxic waste illegally near the coast of Somali, which really wreaked havoc after the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami, which washed a lot of the crap onshore and caused mass illness.
There were always suspicious that this illegal dumping was a money source for the Mafia, although even legit businesses seem to have no problem with it. I don't defend Somali pirates, but people forget that it originated from fishers trying to get illegal dumpers to leave the area, then to try to get compensation for what the dumpers did. This doesn't justify piracy, but it does give lie to the notion that they lack a legitimate grievance and are simply out for money, and it helps to explain why they enjoy such support from Somalians.
I'm surprised the Mafia didn't screw up so bad sooner.
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.
The line between major corporations and the mafia is a grey one. Do we really think that if a major corporation could get away with this, that they wouldn't do it, if it contributed significantly to their bottom line? Corporate behavior is all about cost-benifit analysis. The mafia operates by a slightly different risk profile. It also seems likely that what we think of as the mafia owns substantial portions of equity in our major corporations.
Why do I think this comment is appropriate to the discussion? Because I watch the behavior of legitimate corporations and see similarities. Gold mining companies often create huge pools of arsenic waste. The oil sands companies in Canada create huge and persistent pools of massively polluted water, sucking away and polluting water that would have otherwise gone for agriculture or human consumption. Major shipping companies routinely dump their oil laden bilge water in the open ocean. How exactly does this behavior not fall under the category of "organized crime"?
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Well, since we are drawing conclusions from the individual experiences I'd like to say that my experience in Italy was nothing like what you or the parent describe. The only "crime" we were warned about was pickpocketing, which we never encountered (though we did take precautions against), the shopkeepers were honest and helpful and the people were extremely friendly. In fact the only rude people that I encountered in my two weeks there were all French and German tourists.
I loved my time in Italy. I would go back in a heartbeat. Maybe your problem was that you didn't get away from the tourist traps? I spent a week in Florence and another week in the Tuscan countryside. Other than a few of the museums in Florence none of our destinations were the usual tourist spots.
Random highlights of my trip to Italy:
1) Getting to drive for our group because our Italian driver/tour guide was afraid of the "big" vehicle (minivan) that we rented. ;)
2) Getting to one-up the snobby French tourists that arrogantly assumed none of us spoke their language.
3) Learning to make tiramisu from scratch.
4) Drinking wine at lunch.
5) Drinking more wine at dinner.
6) Learning that many Italians also hate the French
7) Getting to see recently unearthed Etruscan ruins.
8) Getting to see Lake Trasimene
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
Because, in Southern Italy, the mafia has taken over a lot of the roles more commonly associated with a government (given that they are not a government, this presumably makes Southern Italy a Libertarian Utopia). Removing them is not easy when they are entrenched into every layer of society. In some places they actually receive higher approval ratings than the government; they don't interfere too much with the general populous and the protection money that they pay actually does buy them protection (what the Mafia will do to you if you rob a shop that is under their protection is a lot more of a deterrent to petty thieves than what the police will do to you, and the Mafia are a lot more likely to catch you because they also control the fences you would use to shift the stolen goods).
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There are people who are simply not like us; just not the same.
They may not be like us, but we are a lot more like "them" then we'd like to admit. Human decency and morality are slender threads keeping us from falling into the abyss. With the right motives and situation, they are easily severed (e.g. the Milgram experiment).
Morals and ethics are not relative. There is a difference between the specific and the general. The general: it is immoral to coerce someone to have sex with you. The specific: a fourteen year old is unable to make an uncoerced decision to have sex with a 40 year old.
Hundreds of years ago society did not agree with the specific rule, but it did agree with the general rule. If you examine the moral rules from society to society you will discover that they all follow the same general rules even though the specific rules vary (there may be some exceptions, but those are immoral societies).
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
That's not my experience from 14 or so years ago. Italy was fantastic, and Italians good natured and friendly. Prior to the adoption of the Euro Italy was also a big bang for your buck. Not so much anymore, but still filled with more art, history, culture and food than most places.
Potato chips are a by-yourself food.
Why the Mafia Loves Garbage.
My grandmother, My wifes grandmother and my aunt were all married at 13.."my mother at 16" so it wasn't 200 years ago. It's less than 60 years ago.
Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
Actually, I think the emphasis was a bit wrong on "ethics" and "morals". A more correct definition is that some people lack "empathy". See, psychopathy.
Morals and ethics can be see as an agreed upon code, but empathy is something built in and arguably hard-wired. See, mirror neurons.
In effect, most of those morals and ethics -- and the real reason why most people go along with them -- are based on that empathy. We're hard-wired to be nice to our fellow humans. Well, about 97% of us, anyway. We don't kill basically because at a hard-wired level something says "well, _I_ wouldn't like to be killed." We don't steal for the same reason. Etc.
To address your objection: We agree to not have sex with a 14 year old, basically because nowadays we understand that it would cause some psychological harm and that it would make her parents very unhappy. And we're nicer than that.
But it's a bit deeper, actually. It's not just about direct harm, it's that we tend to understand that others have the same needs on Maslow's pyramid, so to speak. Even without knowing what those are. We tend to realize that others need to feel safe too, for example. Or that they need their private space too. Etc.
Basically while the actual social contract may vary and is subjective, it's based upon something which doesn't. Sure, we may find different solutions to the same problem, but that problem is real and pretty objective. (You can actually see it on an MRI scan, if you want something which isn't dependent of subjective interpretations.)
A second factor is that, essentially, we're social animals and want to belong in a group of our peers. (See Maslow's pyramid again.) We want to be accepted, maybe even appreciated, etc. We're prepared to work out a compromise to that end, so the group can function or even exist.
There are rules and morals and ethics which, basically, solve _that_ problem. They're how the group organizes itself, so it can exist as a group. I won't stress you, if you won't stress me, and all that, in a nutshell.
That's something that all the moral relativists seem to miss. They dig up some seemingly arbitrary rule, like "don't have sex with too young people", and wave it as a banner for the idea that all rules are just arbitrary conventions. But they miss the foundation for that body of rules, and the purpose they serve. But I digress.
Sociopaths are amoral basically because they lack that foundation which makes the other people be moral and ethical. The difference is basically at a different level than the morals and ethics themselves.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
That's not really all that true. Historically, the issue wasn't as much coercion as of violation of property rights of a third party to the act (either the father or husband of the woman), which is why it wasn't until the 21st century that more than a very small minority of the world's countries prohibited marital rape (either specifically or by not excluding it from the general prohibition on rape), why many places in the world still don't prohibit it, and why in some cultures (even in places where law has formally moved past this point) there is still little difference in the treatment of the identified perpetrator and victim in a (non-marital) rape and the willing participants in pre- or extra-marital sex.
The idea that real and competent consent is the key issue in sexual morality/ethics is not something that is a matter of universal understanding across time and space where only the details of who is competent to consent have changed over time. (Though, OTOH, after the idea that consent was a key basis of morality -- after, IOW, the Enlightenment -- the tolerance of marital rape was justified for quite some time, e.g., in England and later in the U.S., among other places, by the concept of marriage as unconditional and irrevocable consent.)
You're modded funny, but actually there's a serious component to what you're saying. The rationale the French president offered to his people for withdrawing from Algeria at the time (which was controversial, what with all the pied-noirs and all that) was that if Algeria were to become a part of France, its citizens would have to become equal French citizens. Simple mathematics showed that for that to happen, huge investments in both the prosperity of the Algerians and social structure of Algeria would have to be made. So huge that the resulting tax burden would reduce everyone in France to hunger-struck poverty. Did the French screw it up? Perhaps. Although maybe its more like they started something that simply couldn't be finished, through so many factors that they couldn't possibly have foreseen it, be it changing standards over time, the way the war reduced Europe to a secondary player in the world (if that), the economic reality, lack of foresight and thinking through the consequences because everyone seemed to be doing it and it seemed to work out okay for them...
Oh, and I know GP is kidding, but for those who missed it: the piracy problem in the south Mediterranean is very slight, it's there, after all you get criminals everywhere, but certainly not enough to fight wars about, and even if they would, they would stick to wiping the sea clean because we've learned our lesson from Algeria and besides no one really wants millions of extra EU citizens who happen to be a) poor meaning a lot of job loss for the existing population, who are not really employable elsewhere, they're just climbing out of this recession and don't really need another one and b) muslim, which would wreak havoc on their social structures and human rights, which they have gotten kind of attached to (except of course in Britain).
Betraying my ignorance on EPA laws...
At what point does it become "waste", though? Who gets tagged as the "generator", in cases where one man's garbage is another man's treasure?
Lard, Inc. manufactures vegetable oil, and sells it to McBurgerjoint, who uses it to cook food. McBurgerjoint sells its used cooking oil to BioHippie Inc, which filters it and sells it as diesel fuel to GasNGo, which sells it to consumers. GasNGo goes out of business and dumps a bunch of the biodiesel in a lake. Who pays?
Coalectric Power burns coal in a power plant, producting fly ash. They give the fly ash to Concretorama, who use it as a minor concrete additive. Concretorama sells the concrete to Skylimit Construction, who build a skyscraper with it. The skyscraper eventually gets dynamited, and the concrete rubble is used as landfill. 20 years later, the concrete is found to be contaminated with heavy metals from the fly ash. Who pays?
The book McMafia has some interesting views on the protection rackets that appeared in the former Soviet Union countries in the 1990s. One common theme is that the protection money charged by these organisations was actually quite reasonable - around 7.5% - lower than corporate taxation in the West (there was no corporation tax, or functioning government in the Western sense, in these countries). The protection rackets would also negotiate and arbitrate on your behalf with other businesses, and produce an agreed upon contractual solution to any conflicts. If there were a later dispute over terms, the Mafia-type group would judge it, and make sure the judgement were enforced.
In essence, for 7.5% tax the Mafia groups provided a functioning corporate security service, arbitration and legal system. Another interesting view is that this whole system actually worked - if your car was stolen, and you had it insured with the mob, there was a >90% chance that it would be returned to you. Business contracts would actually be quickly enforced (once the Mafia said "this is the way we understood the contract", that was that). The problems only began to arise once groups began to fight over the drugs and sex trade, which led to many assassinations, and instability in the business world.
It's a fascinating book.