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Comment by magicalhippo | Hacker News Reader

Here in Norway, had the loss actually been real, he could have declared personal bankruptcy and moved on with his life. From what I can see the US has something similar, though I'm not sure how effective it is?

Tragic event regardless, and a stark reminder to us programmers that we should always keep in mind what exactly we're doing, what are we telling the users, what are we letting the users do.

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In the US, it got watered down in the Bush administration. It's quite complicated, but if you make too much income, you're disqualified. A ton of people no longer qualify. Of course, I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know how it works in the real world.

A 20 year old kid with no day job would probably qualify. He might not be able to get out of some student loans, but he's 20 and those aren't 700k.

Yes, bankruptcy is an option but it's not the end of the world. Maybe forming an LLC is the way to go in these cases where you are trading non-insignificant amounts of money.

Excuse my ignorance but how does personal bankruptcy work? Does this allow you to accumulate debt and move along?

An overview of the process here in Norway can be found here[1]. Basically the rights to all your possessions go to the trustee or court in charge of the case, which will then try to liquidate assets and pay back the creditors.

However a big difference to a corporate bankruptcy is that if you're unable to provide for yourself, you can apply to the trustee/court to get some money for essentials from your previous assets. You can also claim that certain assets are "essential", so you can keep them. This could be clothes, furniture etc. You also get to keep tools, means of transportation etc that you require for your work or similar. Your home is also protected to some degree.

Once the case is settled you pretty much continue your life. You can't start a company for some time, but AFAIK nothing huge hanging over you.

[1]: https://www.konkursradet.no/?cat=304773

Wikipedia has a page about it[0], but it doesn't explain in detail how it works in the U.S., it does say that it involves a process similar to corporate bankruptcy.

0:https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_bankruptcy

Yes. Slavery is illegal. The reason interest rates are sometimes so high is that lending money is a risk for the lender, not a life sentence for the borrower.

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