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I think this perspective on accidents needs far more emphasis. Many accidents are unavoidable and not the result of some person failing to do some thing. The

I think this perspective on accidents needs far more emphasis. Many accidents are unavoidable and not the result of some person failing to do some thing. The world isn't a story, people don't have much agency, and events do not happen because people want them to. These "narrative explanations" are mythological just-so stories that attribute the complex interaction of systems to individuals, organizations, etc. in naive agency-based ways.

rusk 8y ago
Yes, but, its no excuse for relaxing operational rigor. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And if you repeatedly ignore the lessons of experience then you are to blame.
- bookofjoe 8y ago
  "History is written by the victors."—attributed to Winston Churchill. https://www.quora.com/Winston-Churchill-said-that-history-was-written-by-the-victors-Do-you-agree-with-that-statement https://www.quora.com/Winston-Churchill-said-that-history-wa...
  - rusk 8y ago
    The top answer at that link disputes that attribution.
    - bookofjoe 8y ago
      Precisely why I wrote "attributed to"
- bookofjoe 8y ago
  "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."—George Santayana (The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. Scribner's, 1905: 284)
bookofjoe 8y ago
"Explanations are just clumsy rationalizations with hindsight."—Ingmar Bergman
cal5k 8y ago
This is the issue I have with the media - moreso than any particular bias, media loves to paint a narrative when, in truth, random events are more likely to blame (though in fairness this is a human flaw borne from the heuristic value of narrative). Accidents happen in complex systems - rather than burning the people involved at the stake, we should recognize the inherent complexity of safety hurtling an aluminum tube full of humans through the air at just below the speed of sound, review the accident in a calm and sober fashion, and make the necessary changes to prevent a similar accident in the future
- agumonkey 8y ago
  the more I grow, the less I understand why medias.. if twitter and facebook are dopamine abusers, traditional medias are also a kind of drug, mild intensity, but drug still
- anigbrowl 8y ago
  Oh, let's be calm and sober about this, and passively accept the existence of accidents rather than re-examine organizational, business, or economic premises. So much easier to blame the media. Craven excuse-making and responsibility avoidance at its worst.
  - cal5k 8y ago
    ...except for the part where I say we should examine the root cause and make appropriate adjustments? Or should we find every software developer who ever worked on the 737 MAX and throw them in jail? Because brutal punishment of errors is what leads to a culture of quality improvement, right?
    - anigbrowl 8y ago
      No. You chose to start out pointing the finger of blame at the media and adding a vague statement about fixing the issue is mere lip service. You now go to the opposite extreme, employing the fallacy of the excluded middle and emotive language like 'brutal punishment' to invalidate an argument that was never made. Your dishonesty only highlights the weakness of your position.
beams_of_light 8y ago
Do you feel this way about repeat occurrences? Is this an appeal to the reader's sense of fate/destiny? I work in telecom. When a aReallyBadThing happens, a post-mortem has to be compiled, and steps are taken to ensure that aReallyBadThing doesn't happen again. There are unavoidable perils in telecom, like backhoe operators, weather, train derailments, and malicious actors. However, there are events which do not repeat because people figure out that a software/firmware package is coded to do something wrong, a component fails under certain conditions, an operator does something that they shouldn't, or maintenance isn't done correctly or on time.

rusk 8y ago

Yes, but, its no excuse for relaxing operational rigor. Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. And if you repeatedly ignore the lessons of experience then you are to blame.

bookofjoe 8y ago
"History is written by the victors."—attributed to Winston Churchill. https://www.quora.com/Winston-Churchill-said-that-history-was-written-by-the-victors-Do-you-agree-with-that-statement https://www.quora.com/Winston-Churchill-said-that-history-wa...
- rusk 8y ago
  The top answer at that link disputes that attribution.
  - bookofjoe 8y ago
    Precisely why I wrote "attributed to"
bookofjoe 8y ago
"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."—George Santayana (The Life of Reason: Reason in Common Sense. Scribner's, 1905: 284)

bookofjoe 8y ago

"Explanations are just clumsy rationalizations with hindsight."—Ingmar Bergman

cal5k 8y ago

This is the issue I have with the media - moreso than any particular bias, media loves to paint a narrative when, in truth, random events are more likely to blame (though in fairness this is a human flaw borne from the heuristic value of narrative). Accidents happen in complex systems - rather than burning the people involved at the stake, we should recognize the inherent complexity of safety hurtling an aluminum tube full of humans through the air at just below the speed of sound, review the accident in a calm and sober fashion, and make the necessary changes to prevent a similar accident in the future

agumonkey 8y ago
the more I grow, the less I understand why medias.. if twitter and facebook are dopamine abusers, traditional medias are also a kind of drug, mild intensity, but drug still
anigbrowl 8y ago
Oh, let's be calm and sober about this, and passively accept the existence of accidents rather than re-examine organizational, business, or economic premises. So much easier to blame the media. Craven excuse-making and responsibility avoidance at its worst.
- cal5k 8y ago
  ...except for the part where I say we should examine the root cause and make appropriate adjustments? Or should we find every software developer who ever worked on the 737 MAX and throw them in jail? Because brutal punishment of errors is what leads to a culture of quality improvement, right?
  - anigbrowl 8y ago
    No. You chose to start out pointing the finger of blame at the media and adding a vague statement about fixing the issue is mere lip service. You now go to the opposite extreme, employing the fallacy of the excluded middle and emotive language like 'brutal punishment' to invalidate an argument that was never made. Your dishonesty only highlights the weakness of your position.

beams_of_light 8y ago

Do you feel this way about repeat occurrences? Is this an appeal to the reader's sense of fate/destiny? I work in telecom. When a aReallyBadThing happens, a post-mortem has to be compiled, and steps are taken to ensure that aReallyBadThing doesn't happen again. There are unavoidable perils in telecom, like backhoe operators, weather, train derailments, and malicious actors. However, there are events which do not repeat because people figure out that a software/firmware package is coded to do something wrong, a component fails under certain conditions, an operator does something that they shouldn't, or maintenance isn't done correctly or on time.