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I feel like this comment is callous, but unfairly downvoted. All projects contain risk. Getting out of bed and taking a shower involves risk, you can slip and

I feel like this comment is callous, but unfairly downvoted. All projects contain risk. Getting out of bed and taking a shower involves risk, you can slip and fall. The larger the project, the larger the sample size and the more statistical considerations for risk should be managed. Modern western society has greatly lost all tolerance of risk. One difference that struck me for risk culture, compared to the past, is old footage of the 1955 Le Mans disaster: after the catastrophic crash, bystanders themselves helped carry bodies away from the scene, and clean up wreckage. This calmness and social damage tolerance in the process of a disaster is very different from a modern "evacuate and let the professionals handle it" attitude, and I think this is an example of a clear shift in social tolerance of risk. I wonder if the Apollo project would have worked today, instead of in the 1960s. At the scale of an infrastructure project of half a billion dollars, we're not talking about something so big that zero injuries safety standards are bad. However, as you get larger projects, it is statistically impossible to keep risk at 0; I'm not sure how willing modern society is to accept that injuries on large projects is inevitable. Elsewhere in this thread, user JumpCrisscross comments about comparing the cost overrun to the second bid. Following up that comment, the top response is something along the lines of "nobody was injured, so showering the contractor with money is ok". This attitude is prevalent in modern society, and it doesn't really get questioned. Let's pose a hypothetical scenario: If a person has their leg broken, let's say a platform caused someone to fall and hurt their back. Would that amount of damage be worth a $250million additional cost? Think of the amount of social good you can do with $250million. At what level does society overvalue the reduction of risk? This is an important question to ask. Let's not even talk about minor injuries. Let's say 1 person died. If you walk up to a random person, tell them that they have the opportunity to die; BUT their immediate family would receive $125 million dollars, and $125million would be donated to the charity of their choice. I suspect a very large percentage of people would actually be willing to take that offer. And yet, giving an extra $250million to a contractor to build something is considered "worth it" to the general public if no injuries were reported. At which point does society overvalue reducing risk?

arethuza 9y ago
So what value would you put on someone being killed or maimed to save some money? Because that is exactly the calculation you are proposing should happen.
- jychang 9y ago
  A quite a bit less than $250million, which is how much is being paid. In fact, people would even volunteer to die for "just" $100million. Just see this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4jqfka/what_would_you_do_for_100000000_but_not_for_100000/d38pkhv/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4jqfka/what_woul... This is EXACTLY what I mean by "risk management for large projects". For a small $10k project? A small percentage cost decrease for increased risk of death isn't worth it. For a multi-billion dollar project? All of the sudden, the incentives change drastically. How many people would be willing to work on a project that is a tiny amount more risky, but knowing that their families will be handsomely compensated in case anything happens? If you told me that my family will receive $100mil guaranteed if I die/get maimed, there's very little I'm not willing to do. Also, to note: $100,000,000 is enough to save around 30,000 children from an excruciating death by malaria. TL;DR 1 average human life generally isn't worth throwing away $250million. I will literally volunteer my own life on this fact.
  - arethuza 9y ago
    But how do you know that it is a simple trade off between money and safety standards? It's been noted on HN that the US seems particularly bad at large infrastructure projects compared to other developed countries and I'm struggling to believe that's because the US has wildly better safety standards.
    - jychang 9y ago
      I don't. That's moving the goalposts. Who cares if Oroville Dam is in the USA or not. The same thing would still apply if it was in the UK. I'm merely saying the modern public should reconsider spending $250million extra, instead of applauding it simply because no injuries happened.
jacquesm 9y ago
I love it when deskjockeys start putting a price on other people's lives. Construction is dangerous, if you are willing to compromise on that then you'll see that you can do even better when you drop that price. And before you know it we're back in the 1930's again.
- dredmorbius 9y ago
  The simple fact is that there is a trade-off between the effective safety measures put in place, and the costs of doing so. And at some point you cross a line between reasonable and unreasonable expense. Dollars may be imaginary, but they trade for real resources, and those resources exchange for opportunity costs elsewhere, including lives that might be saved or improved by other routes. I'll but the question back to you: how much are you willing to pay to save one additional life? $1 million? $1 billion? $1 trillion? $100 trillion? (That last is more than total gross world production.) I've got my own considerable problems with numerous elements of evaluating costs and benefits in economics, many of which I've been trying to articulate for over three decades and am only just now starting to get a handle on. I would not argue, for example, that just straight earning potential is an adequate basis. I also don't think that various proposed "market bid" rates for how much individuals are willing to accept under very specific and limited conditions are particularly useful. But even accounting for community, social, and disruption losses, somewhere between tens and hundreds of millions is likely a reasonable balance.
  - philipov 9y ago
    That's fine as long as the ones deciding on the balance have to take a large share of the risk of injury. Be the first to work in the same conditions you expose others to. Otherwise, you're just a hypocrite and a monster.
    - dredmorbius 9y ago
      Your rhetoric doesn't match the world. Part of society involves distributing decisionmaking and risks. And no, not always equally. I don't find the argument that those most adept at accurately and fairly assessing risks are necessarily those who can accomplish the tasks involved. To put this in a different field: I'd not expect my airline pilot to be the best qualified accident investigator, nor systems engineer, nor aircraft fabricator. And I as passenger bear the consequence of their combined work. Reality bekons, if you care to heed its call.
quanticle 9y ago
>I wonder if the Apollo project would have worked today, instead of in the 1960s. George Mueller (who was head of NASA during the Apollo program) said that it would be impossible to repeat Apollo today without it being a classified program as Congress has passed so many laws and regulations in the meantime. Source: https://dominiccummings.com/2017/06/12/the-unrecognised-simplicities-of-effective-action-2b-the-apollo-programme-the-tory-train-wreck-and-advice-to-spads-starting-work-today/ https://dominiccummings.com/2017/06/12/the-unrecognised-simp...
falcolas 9y ago
I honestly think this is just reflection of how the value of a human life has changed in the last few decades. The thought of spending millions of dollars you don't have to save a newborn with a serious heart defect is praiseworthy. The thought of bankrupting yourself and your loved ones for a chance at another year or two on the earth is normal. What I can't say is whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. There's a part of me that recoils at the thought of putting a price on a life. Then there's another part of me that recoils at the selfishness of bankrupting my wife should I get cancer. That same selfishness recoils at the thought of bankrupting myself should she get cancer. I'm not looking forward to those decisions.
mikeash 9y ago
Risk tolerance has definitely gone down, but what’s the basis for assuming that the level of tolerance was right in the past, and today it’s too low? Historically, the people investing in safety were not the people who were exposed to the risk. That created perverse incentives, where $1 in safety improvements that would save an average of $10 in human health or life would be rejected because the people who would pay the $1 would not be the ones paying the $10. That’s still true, of course, but we at least attempt to make people do the right thing. Regulators today aren’t afraid to assign a dollar value to a human life and reject safety improvements that don’t have a positive ROI. The standard value currently is something like $8 million. I suspect that the parent wasn’t downvoted for callously making a good point. They were downvoted for baselessly assuming that the correct level of safety tolerance would result in injuries or deaths on this project, and doing so callously.

arethuza 9y ago

So what value would you put on someone being killed or maimed to save some money? Because that is exactly the calculation you are proposing should happen.

jychang 9y ago
A quite a bit less than $250million, which is how much is being paid. In fact, people would even volunteer to die for "just" $100million. Just see this reddit thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4jqfka/what_would_you_do_for_100000000_but_not_for_100000/d38pkhv/ https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/4jqfka/what_woul... This is EXACTLY what I mean by "risk management for large projects". For a small $10k project? A small percentage cost decrease for increased risk of death isn't worth it. For a multi-billion dollar project? All of the sudden, the incentives change drastically. How many people would be willing to work on a project that is a tiny amount more risky, but knowing that their families will be handsomely compensated in case anything happens? If you told me that my family will receive $100mil guaranteed if I die/get maimed, there's very little I'm not willing to do. Also, to note: $100,000,000 is enough to save around 30,000 children from an excruciating death by malaria. TL;DR 1 average human life generally isn't worth throwing away $250million. I will literally volunteer my own life on this fact.
- arethuza 9y ago
  But how do you know that it is a simple trade off between money and safety standards? It's been noted on HN that the US seems particularly bad at large infrastructure projects compared to other developed countries and I'm struggling to believe that's because the US has wildly better safety standards.
  - jychang 9y ago
    I don't. That's moving the goalposts. Who cares if Oroville Dam is in the USA or not. The same thing would still apply if it was in the UK. I'm merely saying the modern public should reconsider spending $250million extra, instead of applauding it simply because no injuries happened.

jacquesm 9y ago

I love it when deskjockeys start putting a price on other people's lives. Construction is dangerous, if you are willing to compromise on that then you'll see that you can do even better when you drop that price. And before you know it we're back in the 1930's again.

dredmorbius 9y ago
The simple fact is that there is a trade-off between the effective safety measures put in place, and the costs of doing so. And at some point you cross a line between reasonable and unreasonable expense. Dollars may be imaginary, but they trade for real resources, and those resources exchange for opportunity costs elsewhere, including lives that might be saved or improved by other routes. I'll but the question back to you: how much are you willing to pay to save one additional life? $1 million? $1 billion? $1 trillion? $100 trillion? (That last is more than total gross world production.) I've got my own considerable problems with numerous elements of evaluating costs and benefits in economics, many of which I've been trying to articulate for over three decades and am only just now starting to get a handle on. I would not argue, for example, that just straight earning potential is an adequate basis. I also don't think that various proposed "market bid" rates for how much individuals are willing to accept under very specific and limited conditions are particularly useful. But even accounting for community, social, and disruption losses, somewhere between tens and hundreds of millions is likely a reasonable balance.
- philipov 9y ago
  That's fine as long as the ones deciding on the balance have to take a large share of the risk of injury. Be the first to work in the same conditions you expose others to. Otherwise, you're just a hypocrite and a monster.
  - dredmorbius 9y ago
    Your rhetoric doesn't match the world. Part of society involves distributing decisionmaking and risks. And no, not always equally. I don't find the argument that those most adept at accurately and fairly assessing risks are necessarily those who can accomplish the tasks involved. To put this in a different field: I'd not expect my airline pilot to be the best qualified accident investigator, nor systems engineer, nor aircraft fabricator. And I as passenger bear the consequence of their combined work. Reality bekons, if you care to heed its call.

quanticle 9y ago

>I wonder if the Apollo project would have worked today, instead of in the 1960s. George Mueller (who was head of NASA during the Apollo program) said that it would be impossible to repeat Apollo today without it being a classified program as Congress has passed so many laws and regulations in the meantime. Source: https://dominiccummings.com/2017/06/12/the-unrecognised-simplicities-of-effective-action-2b-the-apollo-programme-the-tory-train-wreck-and-advice-to-spads-starting-work-today/ https://dominiccummings.com/2017/06/12/the-unrecognised-simp...

falcolas 9y ago

I honestly think this is just reflection of how the value of a human life has changed in the last few decades. The thought of spending millions of dollars you don't have to save a newborn with a serious heart defect is praiseworthy. The thought of bankrupting yourself and your loved ones for a chance at another year or two on the earth is normal. What I can't say is whether this is a good thing or a bad thing. There's a part of me that recoils at the thought of putting a price on a life. Then there's another part of me that recoils at the selfishness of bankrupting my wife should I get cancer. That same selfishness recoils at the thought of bankrupting myself should she get cancer. I'm not looking forward to those decisions.

mikeash 9y ago

Risk tolerance has definitely gone down, but what’s the basis for assuming that the level of tolerance was right in the past, and today it’s too low? Historically, the people investing in safety were not the people who were exposed to the risk. That created perverse incentives, where $1 in safety improvements that would save an average of $10 in human health or life would be rejected because the people who would pay the $1 would not be the ones paying the $10. That’s still true, of course, but we at least attempt to make people do the right thing. Regulators today aren’t afraid to assign a dollar value to a human life and reject safety improvements that don’t have a positive ROI. The standard value currently is something like $8 million. I suspect that the parent wasn’t downvoted for callously making a good point. They were downvoted for baselessly assuming that the correct level of safety tolerance would result in injuries or deaths on this project, and doing so callously.