4 ms·

I don't like PG&E, but if you have a gas leak in your house, and a guy walks down the street in front smoking a cigarette and everything blows up, does the smok

I don't like PG&E, but if you have a gas leak in your house, and a guy walks down the street in front smoking a cigarette and everything blows up, does the smoker buy you a new house? The natural environment in parts of California has reached an inherently unstable state, with no logging, no prescribed burns, extensive suppression, global warming, draught, and limited brush clearing.

jhayward 8y ago
This is a fatally flawed analogy. A more apt analogy would be one involving a professional engineer designing a system that creates uncontained electrical arcs for use in an environment known to be explosive.
joe_the_user 8y ago
I don't like PG&E, but if you have a gas leak in your house, and a guy walks down the street in front smoking a cigarette and everything blows up, does the smoker buy you a new house? "Most ironic analogy ever"? You know PG&E is a gas company? Not only that, PG&E has killed people with gas line leaks? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion
- Aloha 8y ago
  this is a whataboutit response, and doesnt really engage with the users comment.
  - joe_the_user 8y ago
    The users' comment was about multiple liability but his example strongly implied the gas leaker and not the smoker should take the blames. PG&E is only partly for all of the terrible things that have happened under their watch but liable enough that they deserve harsh penalties. I think it is telling when someone groping for a defense by analogy can't help but stumble onto an analogy that says the opposite of what's intended. It can be symptom that one's overall argument is quite thin.
    - Aloha 8y ago
      I'm not sure harsh penalties will solve this particular problem, or prevent it from happening again, very honestly. As I alluded to elsewhere on the thread, the whole thing strikes me broadly as act of god - everything about the weather and conditions was extraordinary - power lines fall down, they fail, they spark, none of this is terribly unusual, usually nothing bad happens, so you dont hear about it.
    - cameldrv 8y ago
      As I said, I don't like PG&E. High rates, San Bruno, etc, etc. The problem is that a lot of the forests in California are just going to burn, whether it's tomorrow or in five years, because they are tinderboxes. Maybe any individual ones will be caused by poorly maintained electrical lines, or a careless campfire, or a cigarette or lightning, but given enough time, there will be a spark. In much of California, wildfire is part of the natural cycle. A lot of of California is dry, so downfall wood doesn't rot. The only way that energy gets released is for it to burn. Because we use forest management practices developed where downfall wood does rot, and because politicians don't like to tell people that their cozy cabin in the woods needs to burn down, we've backed ourselves into an ugly corner with way too much fuel on the forest floor. You can blame PG&E, but if it wasn't them with the ignition source it would have been someone else.
  - objektif 8y ago
    It is slightly worse than the simplistic analogy by the OP. Regardless PCG should have taken extra precautions due the environment in CA. That would have been the responsible course of action for the environment, shareholders etc. Afterall you dont go to Mars with a swimsuit. (Hows this for an analogy?)
odorousrex 8y ago
Your analogy is flawed. You assume the smoker is ignorant of the fact that there is a gas leak. It would be better to say the smoker went into a gas filled house with signs that said "NO SMOKING!", smelt gas, looked around and lit up anyway.

jhayward 8y ago

This is a fatally flawed analogy. A more apt analogy would be one involving a professional engineer designing a system that creates uncontained electrical arcs for use in an environment known to be explosive.

joe_the_user 8y ago

I don't like PG&E, but if you have a gas leak in your house, and a guy walks down the street in front smoking a cigarette and everything blows up, does the smoker buy you a new house? "Most ironic analogy ever"? You know PG&E is a gas company? Not only that, PG&E has killed people with gas line leaks? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Bruno_pipeline_explosion

Aloha 8y ago
this is a whataboutit response, and doesnt really engage with the users comment.
- joe_the_user 8y ago
  The users' comment was about multiple liability but his example strongly implied the gas leaker and not the smoker should take the blames. PG&E is only partly for all of the terrible things that have happened under their watch but liable enough that they deserve harsh penalties. I think it is telling when someone groping for a defense by analogy can't help but stumble onto an analogy that says the opposite of what's intended. It can be symptom that one's overall argument is quite thin.
  - Aloha 8y ago
    I'm not sure harsh penalties will solve this particular problem, or prevent it from happening again, very honestly. As I alluded to elsewhere on the thread, the whole thing strikes me broadly as act of god - everything about the weather and conditions was extraordinary - power lines fall down, they fail, they spark, none of this is terribly unusual, usually nothing bad happens, so you dont hear about it.
  - cameldrv 8y ago
    As I said, I don't like PG&E. High rates, San Bruno, etc, etc. The problem is that a lot of the forests in California are just going to burn, whether it's tomorrow or in five years, because they are tinderboxes. Maybe any individual ones will be caused by poorly maintained electrical lines, or a careless campfire, or a cigarette or lightning, but given enough time, there will be a spark. In much of California, wildfire is part of the natural cycle. A lot of of California is dry, so downfall wood doesn't rot. The only way that energy gets released is for it to burn. Because we use forest management practices developed where downfall wood does rot, and because politicians don't like to tell people that their cozy cabin in the woods needs to burn down, we've backed ourselves into an ugly corner with way too much fuel on the forest floor. You can blame PG&E, but if it wasn't them with the ignition source it would have been someone else.
- objektif 8y ago
  It is slightly worse than the simplistic analogy by the OP. Regardless PCG should have taken extra precautions due the environment in CA. That would have been the responsible course of action for the environment, shareholders etc. Afterall you dont go to Mars with a swimsuit. (Hows this for an analogy?)

odorousrex 8y ago

Your analogy is flawed. You assume the smoker is ignorant of the fact that there is a gas leak. It would be better to say the smoker went into a gas filled house with signs that said "NO SMOKING!", smelt gas, looked around and lit up anyway.