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An engineer will say a bridge will fail, or a foundation they designed 20 years ago will give way under 4x the load it was designed for, but the politicians and

by trome 10y ago

An engineer will say a bridge will fail, or a foundation they designed 20 years ago will give way under 4x the load it was designed for, but the politicians and businessmen at the top will overrule them, people may die, and the only person blamed will be the engineer, despite the paper they wrote and published years before saying to tear the 60 year old bridge with spalding concrete and rusted girders down. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make them drink it. The same goes for accepting reality, hence why many choose to live in an alternative reality.

aswanson 10y ago
Im always amazed and in fear of bridges in terms of engineering. The Ben Franklin Bridge was built in 1923, before mass transportation, cars, etc. and routinely handles full traffic jams every day. The engineer could not have had that in mind when it was built, and yet it stands.
- jacquesm 10y ago
  That's because those engineers did take their safety margins and unforeseen uses serious and engineered in enough redundancy to make this work. Obviously there are limits, chances are those limits are fairly well described and if they are ever exceeded it will be ugly.
marcosdumay 10y ago
> and the only person blamed will be the engineer, despite the paper they wrote and published years before If that's really the case, it's a pretty fucked-up situation. The expected outcome for a politician ignoring technical advice and people dying as a consequence is for the politician to be always blamed. Even when the technical advice was nonsense, what leads to a lot of different problems (including politicians working hard to silence technicians). I can't imagine what kinds of problems make politicians able to shift the blame onto people that say the structure is not secure, but I'd start searching for corruption at the judiciary branch.

by trome 10y ago

aswanson 10y ago

Im always amazed and in fear of bridges in terms of engineering. The Ben Franklin Bridge was built in 1923, before mass transportation, cars, etc. and routinely handles full traffic jams every day. The engineer could not have had that in mind when it was built, and yet it stands.

jacquesm 10y ago
That's because those engineers did take their safety margins and unforeseen uses serious and engineered in enough redundancy to make this work. Obviously there are limits, chances are those limits are fairly well described and if they are ever exceeded it will be ugly.

marcosdumay 10y ago

> and the only person blamed will be the engineer, despite the paper they wrote and published years before If that's really the case, it's a pretty fucked-up situation. The expected outcome for a politician ignoring technical advice and people dying as a consequence is for the politician to be always blamed. Even when the technical advice was nonsense, what leads to a lot of different problems (including politicians working hard to silence technicians). I can't imagine what kinds of problems make politicians able to shift the blame onto people that say the structure is not secure, but I'd start searching for corruption at the judiciary branch.