4 ms·

> The system is supposed to prevent people from dying, 346 people died, the system is broken, it is a fact. Please present one system that you designed and imp

> The system is supposed to prevent people from dying, 346 people died, the system is broken, it is a fact. Please present one system that you designed and implemented and it worked without faults. Imperfect (as all things are) does not equal broken! From a system design point of view I've lived to see multiple "broken" systems being replaced by a worse system with the best of intentions. Also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_analysis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post_hoc_analysis To be clear: I am not saying FAA is faultless, I am no expert on aviation security, I simply have no opinion. I'm just saying some people are quick to take out the pitchforks.

braythwayt 6y ago
I make software that is broken ALL THE TIME. And what do I do then? Find the faults and then fix them. Just because software is not perfect does not mean that I sit like a dog in a house fire saying, "this is fine." Killing 300+ people is broken. And our obligation is to admit that it is broken, and fix that thing. When we find another thing, we admit that the system is broken there as well, and go fix that. Trying to diminish the seriousness of 300 deaths with mealy-mouth terms like "imperfect" is pure spin. If a plane, staffed by pilots allegedly trained on how to fly it, crashes from pilot error... TWICE, the system is broken. terribly broken. See also: Security, physical or digital. Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. The system was broken. We fixed some of it. We put on some secuity theatre too. But we didn't say, "It's impossible to fix everything, so the system is fine." We didn't shrug it off as "imperfect." We always begin by being truthful with ourselves about the fact that we have discovered that the system is broken. And if the consequences of its broken-ness are unacceptable, we fix it. "Imperfect" is a word that should only be used for acceptable faults. Like, "The seating in economy is imperfect." It's too close together, but we don't have planes falling from the sky because they're cramming passengers together. --- And now a footnote: Please avoid ad hominem arguments like "please name one system you've..." If the speaker's argument has a logical fallacy, point it out. If the speaker's argument is sound, it doesn't matter whether they write faultless software, or even whether they write software at all. It's the argument we are discussing, not the person making it.
- jariel 6y ago
  "Killing 300+ people is broken. And our obligation is to admit that it is broken, and fix that thing." This is a massive trivilisation of the problem. This is not 'code' - it's a massively complex system of large companies, various bits of tech, supply chains, varying international standards, considerably amount of legislation and that's before we get into the humane issue of 'acceptable loses' because '0 deaths' may not actually be feasible. Maybe, but maybe not. "Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. The system was broken. We fixed some of it." Again, this is a misrepresentation. The system was not 'broken' because culturally, people 'didn't do things like that'. The 'fix' for this wouldn't be 'more security' but rather to encourage a civil culture where people don't take over planes and fly them into buildings. And some of the solutions are systematic, i.e. not 'safety checks on planes' but externalities like 'invading countries and destroying places where terrorist plan things' - which isn't so nice. These are very complicated problems that don't have obvious solutions.
  - braythwayt 6y ago
    They may not have obvious solutions, but we recognize that they are broken and we try to find solutions. We then find places the solutions don't work and we iterate or even replace the solutions with new solutions. All systemic problems have complex sets of interactions and unexpected consequences. Racism, automobile deaths[1], and yes, air transportation. We still don't shrug our shoulders and deny that the causes of deaths reflect a broken system, nor do we refuse to attempt to find solutions just because it's damn hard to make progress. [1]: Sometimes, making the vehicle safer makes drivers more reckless. Making cars safer in practice is not as obvious as it appears in theory.
- vorpalhex 6y ago
  All systems do have flaws. Even if we had very intrusive security, 9/11 may have still happened. It's possible no amount of security could have prevented it. And it's possible in attempting to launch several thousand pounds of metal into the air that sometimes your testing is off and people die. That may mean the system is broken, it may mean it's just imperfect - it is not sufficient for either of those claims by itself. That people died does not mean the system is inherently broken - life is not without risk nor should our goal be to make that risk non-existent. Security, to use your example, is fundamentally a trade off - accessibility vs security. Are we willing to trade a more intrusive screening process to prevent some set of attacks? Even if we make that tradeoff and an attack still happens, should we keep it? Would you be willing to be stripped search each and every time you fly if it lowered that risk of an attack another 10%? Your call out of an ad hominem is incorrect. Parent is generalizing human behavior in an uncertain world, not attacking you as an individual. Nobody can write a perfect system, even NASA has failures. A super abstract argument about flawless systems loses to real life statistics every time - theory is great but only reality matters.
emptyfile 6y ago
>I'm just saying some people are quick to take out the pitchforks. Very, very funny considering it took TWO crashes for people to start bringing out pitchforks.

braythwayt 6y ago

I make software that is broken ALL THE TIME. And what do I do then? Find the faults and then fix them. Just because software is not perfect does not mean that I sit like a dog in a house fire saying, "this is fine." Killing 300+ people is broken. And our obligation is to admit that it is broken, and fix that thing. When we find another thing, we admit that the system is broken there as well, and go fix that. Trying to diminish the seriousness of 300 deaths with mealy-mouth terms like "imperfect" is pure spin. If a plane, staffed by pilots allegedly trained on how to fly it, crashes from pilot error... TWICE, the system is broken. terribly broken. See also: Security, physical or digital. Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. The system was broken. We fixed some of it. We put on some secuity theatre too. But we didn't say, "It's impossible to fix everything, so the system is fine." We didn't shrug it off as "imperfect." We always begin by being truthful with ourselves about the fact that we have discovered that the system is broken. And if the consequences of its broken-ness are unacceptable, we fix it. "Imperfect" is a word that should only be used for acceptable faults. Like, "The seating in economy is imperfect." It's too close together, but we don't have planes falling from the sky because they're cramming passengers together. --- And now a footnote: Please avoid ad hominem arguments like "please name one system you've..." If the speaker's argument has a logical fallacy, point it out. If the speaker's argument is sound, it doesn't matter whether they write faultless software, or even whether they write software at all. It's the argument we are discussing, not the person making it.

jariel 6y ago
"Killing 300+ people is broken. And our obligation is to admit that it is broken, and fix that thing." This is a massive trivilisation of the problem. This is not 'code' - it's a massively complex system of large companies, various bits of tech, supply chains, varying international standards, considerably amount of legislation and that's before we get into the humane issue of 'acceptable loses' because '0 deaths' may not actually be feasible. Maybe, but maybe not. "Terrorists flew planes into the World Trade Center. The system was broken. We fixed some of it." Again, this is a misrepresentation. The system was not 'broken' because culturally, people 'didn't do things like that'. The 'fix' for this wouldn't be 'more security' but rather to encourage a civil culture where people don't take over planes and fly them into buildings. And some of the solutions are systematic, i.e. not 'safety checks on planes' but externalities like 'invading countries and destroying places where terrorist plan things' - which isn't so nice. These are very complicated problems that don't have obvious solutions.
- braythwayt 6y ago
  They may not have obvious solutions, but we recognize that they are broken and we try to find solutions. We then find places the solutions don't work and we iterate or even replace the solutions with new solutions. All systemic problems have complex sets of interactions and unexpected consequences. Racism, automobile deaths[1], and yes, air transportation. We still don't shrug our shoulders and deny that the causes of deaths reflect a broken system, nor do we refuse to attempt to find solutions just because it's damn hard to make progress. [1]: Sometimes, making the vehicle safer makes drivers more reckless. Making cars safer in practice is not as obvious as it appears in theory.
vorpalhex 6y ago
All systems do have flaws. Even if we had very intrusive security, 9/11 may have still happened. It's possible no amount of security could have prevented it. And it's possible in attempting to launch several thousand pounds of metal into the air that sometimes your testing is off and people die. That may mean the system is broken, it may mean it's just imperfect - it is not sufficient for either of those claims by itself. That people died does not mean the system is inherently broken - life is not without risk nor should our goal be to make that risk non-existent. Security, to use your example, is fundamentally a trade off - accessibility vs security. Are we willing to trade a more intrusive screening process to prevent some set of attacks? Even if we make that tradeoff and an attack still happens, should we keep it? Would you be willing to be stripped search each and every time you fly if it lowered that risk of an attack another 10%? Your call out of an ad hominem is incorrect. Parent is generalizing human behavior in an uncertain world, not attacking you as an individual. Nobody can write a perfect system, even NASA has failures. A super abstract argument about flawless systems loses to real life statistics every time - theory is great but only reality matters.

emptyfile 6y ago

>I'm just saying some people are quick to take out the pitchforks. Very, very funny considering it took TWO crashes for people to start bringing out pitchforks.