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Beirut's government is notoriously dysfunctional and incompetent at the basic tasks of governance. When I was there some years back, there were huge protests pr
by wutbrodo 6y ago
Beirut's government is notoriously dysfunctional and incompetent at the basic tasks of governance. When I was there some years back, there were huge protests precipitated by this incompetence, and that was half a decade ago. People tend to underestimate how much institutional capital is involved in basic governmental tasks running smoothly, even in a country as politically polarized and dysfunctional as, say, the US. It's very plausible to me that this was just a result of that incompetence.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoI agree. Most likely it was plain incompetence or lack of care. Judging from the handling of COVID it seems the US is determined to catch up to Beirut in making everything a political issue and destroying the institutions that make everyday life work smoothly.
- Aeolun 6y agoThis requires incompetence all the way up and down the line though. From the welders to the president.
- forinti 6y agoGreat catastrophes require the collaboration of lots of people.
- roywiggins 6y agoConsidering the state of Lebanon before this, total incompetence would not come as any sort of surprise.
- InitialLastName 6y agoThe most important thing I learned from studying engineering ethics/failure analysis is that most major failures are caused by an accumulation of tiny failures (of both process and material) that, while not individually disastrous, collaborate to cause enormous damage. The "academic" engineering failures (Challenger explosion, Tacoma Narrows Bridge, Therac-25) all had that in common, as did the 747-MAX issue and this.
- H8crilA 6y agoHow Complex Systems Fail https://how.complexsystems.fail/ https://how.complexsystems.fail/
- Jtsummers 6y agoEngineering a Safer World by Leveson [0], as well. Goes into great detail about these ideas, how to model them, and how to build safety into systems deliberately rather than as an afterthought. [0] https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/engineering-safer-world https://mitpress.mit.edu/books/engineering-safer-world
- DetroitThrow 6y agoI wish engineering education paid dues to _engineering processes_ that cause situations like you listed above. I wonder what kind of process failure happened in Lebanon.
- InitialLastName 6y agoAs far as I know, ABET still requires an Engineering Ethics course (that will certainly cover the canonical examples) for their accreditation. That's a good start (it's certainly where I got my start in thinking about those issues).
- ghastmaster 6y agoThe same logic holds true for gun safety. A person usually has to make two mistakes in order to have a negligent discharge. For example if you fail to engage the safety and then pull the trigger accidentally, you made two mistakes.
- InitialLastName 6y agoYeah, that's a pretty canonical example, since the safety is the bit of the system designed to keep the other bits from doing accidental damage.
- 6y ago
- wutbrodo 6y agoThe thing is, the modern economy is such a complex marvel that "incompetence" is the default state. I certainly couldn't put on welding gear and be a competent welder tomorrow, and there's an entire spectrum of competence and ability to fake competence between me and a master welder. It's extremely non-trivial for a large organization to push competency down to the lowest levels of the org tree, and that goes doubly for large organizations like governments with loose accountability feedback loops.
- spaetzleesser 6y agoThat’s pretty common. Once people see other people getting away with or even being rewarded for incompetence or unethical behavior they will also wonder why should go through the trouble of doing their job properly. I have seen that in companies too. Once you see a team taking shortcuts at the expense of quality and being rewarded for their speed other teams will follow soon.