I disagree, mostly because you presented your opinion as black and white.
Apple has, what, > 10k workers? If it cost them $100 billion to prevent one software worker from getting carpal tunnel, your statement suggests that cost should be born by Apple. Similarly, if it cost the cumulative GDP of the US to prevent N amount of pollution, your statement suggests that Apple should go bankrupt preventing that pollution.
Back in the real world, I suspect we generally agree. The problem, IMO, is that companies (and consumers) aren't forced to capture the hidden costs of injuries/pollution.
I just disagree with your black and white assessment. The laws of economics mean companies have to assign dollar values to human life and safety, as much as we dislike the feeling it gives us.
Not all good decisions can be rationalized as having a known, positive ROI. I think it is a pretty safe statement to say that many big decisions must be made for other reasons.
When you take the decision, you may not have enough information to know if it's going to be good or not. But when you took the decision and still refusing to know how much it costed you and how it influenced company finances - it's just willful ignorance and unwillingness to face the facts. That is never good. For the sake of Apple shareholders I hope Cook actually knows the figures he was asked for, and refusing to publish them just as a PR move, to gain some fanboy love from bashing an unpopular target. Because if they genuinely spend money and refuse to count them, it's not good for the company.
I must thank you for giving me enough motivation to finally leave hacker news. I was listening to the new import this podcast, with ken reitz, wherein they were discussing the negativity of this community.
Now I'm going to try and go do something useful with my time, rather than get into obnoxious arguments.
But realistically you do at some point. Sacrificing 1% of profits for a 20% safety increase is reasonable and smart, but doing the reverse would never happen.
Environmental impact in particular is an endless money hole. You can always spend more money to be marginally better, and every company (and individual) has their cut off.
