11 ms·

If the US system is even slightly functional, the FAA will get beefed up and we'll be fine for a decade or two. Then people will again start saying "we've had

by gmac 6y ago

If the US system is even slightly functional, the FAA will get beefed up and we'll be fine for a decade or two. Then people will again start saying "we've had no accidents for years, therefore flying is really safe, so why all this burdensome regulation?". Regulation will get scaled back, something like the 737 MAX will happen again, the FAA will get beefed up, and so on, ad infinitum. It's this sort of regulatory boom and bust that makes me feel humans shouldn't be allowed to do anything that's dangerous on a really large scale (such as nuclear power).

joss82 6y ago
Nuclear power is not that dangerous on a large scale compared to coal power. Or burning any fossil fuel for that matter.
- sgt101 6y ago
  Juggling chainsaws is not so dangerous compared to Russian roulette.
  - joss82 6y ago
    Well, I cannot undo years of pervasive anti-nuke sentiment in a small hacker news comment. I was like you before, it's the "default" sentiment to feel like nuclear power is dangerous and dirty. Please do your homework and collect information from reliable sources on the matter. It might change your mind, or at least give you a more balanced viewpoint.
    - bob29 6y ago
      Or do your homework and find that it’s actually far worse than pro-nuclear propagandists constantly claim. Huge increases in rates of multiple forms of cancer near nuclear sites, while the rest of the country is seeing decreases - but not attributed to nuclear. Huge environmental problems and costs pawned off on the US dept of energy and taxpayers, but not attributed to nuclear. Assassinated whistleblowers. Nuclear industry is a textbook example of regulatory capture. If the renewable guys were anywhere near as good we’d see 0 deaths from solar and wind. “The solar panel didn’t kill him, it was gravity and a slippery ladder”
      - joss82 6y ago
        > Or do your homework and find that it’s actually far worse than pro-nuclear propagandists constantly claim. Well, I did. And did not find any convincing claims. Try to take a step back and not see everyone as either anti or pro. Show me your evidence for your claims. "Assassinated whistleblowers" is a pretty strong statement, it requires pretty strong evidence.
        bob29 6y ago
        Karen Silkwood?
- yrro 6y ago
  So far, no. But a single nuclear power plant has the potential for continent-wide devastation. Is the same true of the world's largest coal power plants (~6.7 GW)?
  - joss82 6y ago
    > But a single nuclear power plant has the potential for continent-wide devastation. This is not true. The space destroyed to make way for coal strip-mining in Germany alone, is larger than Tchernobyl exclusion zone.
  - Schiendelman 6y ago
    A nuclear power plant from 50 years ago, yes. A new one can’t do that.
ekianjo 6y ago
> It's this sort of regulatory boom and bust that makes me feel humans shouldn't be allowed to do anything that's dangerous on a really large scale (such as nuclear power). You had a good comment except for the last line. Nuclear power is the safest form of energy production out there (and by far).
- furyg3 6y ago
  His point is not that nuclear power is not dangerous, his point is that according to his theory, humans will get complacent and walk-back regulations when nothing happens, leading to potential nuclear accidents that were needless.
  - ekianjo 6y ago
    How long do we have to wait to see this prophecy realize? Because nuclear power has been around for a long time already, and the industry remains extremely regulated.
    - jsjohnst 6y ago
      > Because nuclear power has been around for a long time already, and the industry remains extremely regulated. The industry was very heavily regulated globally before Chernobyl and Fukushima, but look what happened. I’m not saying I’m against nuclear power (as I’m not). I’m not saying that any industry regulation is generally ineffective most of the time, especially when financials and greed gets involved (even though it appears to be true). I’m just saying humans are bad at moderating risk over long periods of time.
      - sofixa 6y ago
        > The industry was very heavily regulated globally before Chernobyl and Fukushima, but look what happened Gross incompetence and huge design issues 40 years ago on one hand, and complacency+incompetence that required a huge natural disaster to pose a problem, and even then it resulted in less death and destruction than the evacuation, the natural disaster itself or your regular fossil fuel power plant? Not sure that's a good example.
DangerousPie 6y ago
> If the US system is even slightly functional I have some bad news for you...
bufferoverflow 6y ago
Nuclear power in western countries has been regulated to the crazy safety standards (not to confuse with the military fuckups).
notimetorelax 6y ago
I think it’s an optimization problem and incentives problem. We should be reevaluating level of funding over time, otherwise government organizations will grow indefinitely, but here’s where the incentives come in play, who would be interested in doing this evaluation gradually and with the backing of data? I believe the latter depends on the society and the politics.
ethbr0 6y ago
> regulatory boom and bust The root cause is pretty easy to describe: benefits are apparent and risks are hidden. It's much harder for people to weigh things that might happen against things that will happen. Especially when the former is negative and latter is positive (positive outcome bias). Consequently, in meeting after meeting, risk safeguards are erroded. Because each meeting has a relatively minor "Do we want this benefit, or to hedge this risk?" decision, and in aggregate, people pick the former.
emarsden 6y ago
> It's this sort of regulatory boom and bust that makes me feel humans shouldn't be allowed to do anything that's dangerous on a really large scale (such as nuclear power). For more thinking along these lines, see the book “Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies” (1984) by sociologist Charles Perrow (concerning nuclear power), the book “The Limits of Safety — Organizations, Accidents and Nuclear Weapons” (1993) by Scott Sagan concerning nuclear weapons, and the work of philosopher Hans Jonas on the “imperative of responsibility” (1980s).
Chris2048 6y ago
Fine if humanity will never have to tackle anything complex for it's own survival, e.g. deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with earth (or evacuating the planet before it does), dealing with global warming, or some other planetary change (natural or otherwise), dealing with overpopulation / resources etc. It would also require every other nation on earth to agree with the restriction, which isn't really compatible with the premise in the first place; if the regulations are self-imposed, people will stop following them.

by gmac 6y ago

joss82 6y ago

Nuclear power is not that dangerous on a large scale compared to coal power. Or burning any fossil fuel for that matter.

sgt101 6y ago
Juggling chainsaws is not so dangerous compared to Russian roulette.
- joss82 6y ago
  Well, I cannot undo years of pervasive anti-nuke sentiment in a small hacker news comment. I was like you before, it's the "default" sentiment to feel like nuclear power is dangerous and dirty. Please do your homework and collect information from reliable sources on the matter. It might change your mind, or at least give you a more balanced viewpoint.
  - bob29 6y ago
    Or do your homework and find that it’s actually far worse than pro-nuclear propagandists constantly claim. Huge increases in rates of multiple forms of cancer near nuclear sites, while the rest of the country is seeing decreases - but not attributed to nuclear. Huge environmental problems and costs pawned off on the US dept of energy and taxpayers, but not attributed to nuclear. Assassinated whistleblowers. Nuclear industry is a textbook example of regulatory capture. If the renewable guys were anywhere near as good we’d see 0 deaths from solar and wind. “The solar panel didn’t kill him, it was gravity and a slippery ladder”
    - joss82 6y ago
      > Or do your homework and find that it’s actually far worse than pro-nuclear propagandists constantly claim. Well, I did. And did not find any convincing claims. Try to take a step back and not see everyone as either anti or pro. Show me your evidence for your claims. "Assassinated whistleblowers" is a pretty strong statement, it requires pretty strong evidence.
      - bob29 6y ago
        Karen Silkwood?
yrro 6y ago
So far, no. But a single nuclear power plant has the potential for continent-wide devastation. Is the same true of the world's largest coal power plants (~6.7 GW)?
- joss82 6y ago
  > But a single nuclear power plant has the potential for continent-wide devastation. This is not true. The space destroyed to make way for coal strip-mining in Germany alone, is larger than Tchernobyl exclusion zone.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  A nuclear power plant from 50 years ago, yes. A new one can’t do that.

ekianjo 6y ago

> It's this sort of regulatory boom and bust that makes me feel humans shouldn't be allowed to do anything that's dangerous on a really large scale (such as nuclear power). You had a good comment except for the last line. Nuclear power is the safest form of energy production out there (and by far).

furyg3 6y ago
His point is not that nuclear power is not dangerous, his point is that according to his theory, humans will get complacent and walk-back regulations when nothing happens, leading to potential nuclear accidents that were needless.
- ekianjo 6y ago
  How long do we have to wait to see this prophecy realize? Because nuclear power has been around for a long time already, and the industry remains extremely regulated.
  - jsjohnst 6y ago
    > Because nuclear power has been around for a long time already, and the industry remains extremely regulated. The industry was very heavily regulated globally before Chernobyl and Fukushima, but look what happened. I’m not saying I’m against nuclear power (as I’m not). I’m not saying that any industry regulation is generally ineffective most of the time, especially when financials and greed gets involved (even though it appears to be true). I’m just saying humans are bad at moderating risk over long periods of time.
    - sofixa 6y ago
      > The industry was very heavily regulated globally before Chernobyl and Fukushima, but look what happened Gross incompetence and huge design issues 40 years ago on one hand, and complacency+incompetence that required a huge natural disaster to pose a problem, and even then it resulted in less death and destruction than the evacuation, the natural disaster itself or your regular fossil fuel power plant? Not sure that's a good example.

DangerousPie 6y ago

> If the US system is even slightly functional I have some bad news for you...

bufferoverflow 6y ago

Nuclear power in western countries has been regulated to the crazy safety standards (not to confuse with the military fuckups).

notimetorelax 6y ago

I think it’s an optimization problem and incentives problem. We should be reevaluating level of funding over time, otherwise government organizations will grow indefinitely, but here’s where the incentives come in play, who would be interested in doing this evaluation gradually and with the backing of data? I believe the latter depends on the society and the politics.

ethbr0 6y ago

> regulatory boom and bust The root cause is pretty easy to describe: benefits are apparent and risks are hidden. It's much harder for people to weigh things that might happen against things that will happen. Especially when the former is negative and latter is positive (positive outcome bias). Consequently, in meeting after meeting, risk safeguards are erroded. Because each meeting has a relatively minor "Do we want this benefit, or to hedge this risk?" decision, and in aggregate, people pick the former.

emarsden 6y ago

> It's this sort of regulatory boom and bust that makes me feel humans shouldn't be allowed to do anything that's dangerous on a really large scale (such as nuclear power). For more thinking along these lines, see the book “Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies” (1984) by sociologist Charles Perrow (concerning nuclear power), the book “The Limits of Safety — Organizations, Accidents and Nuclear Weapons” (1993) by Scott Sagan concerning nuclear weapons, and the work of philosopher Hans Jonas on the “imperative of responsibility” (1980s).

Chris2048 6y ago

Fine if humanity will never have to tackle anything complex for it's own survival, e.g. deflecting an asteroid on a collision course with earth (or evacuating the planet before it does), dealing with global warming, or some other planetary change (natural or otherwise), dealing with overpopulation / resources etc. It would also require every other nation on earth to agree with the restriction, which isn't really compatible with the premise in the first place; if the regulations are self-imposed, people will stop following them.