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Not sure how you rectify > all fire safety experts are fools. Rather than experts who have studied and modelled plenty of different scenarios, resulting in mo

by x0x0 6y ago

Not sure how you rectify > all fire safety experts are fools. Rather than experts who have studied and modelled plenty of different scenarios, resulting in modern fire standards that rarely fail. With the state of play in the UK, where something like 5% of homes need emergency remediation to make them actually firesafe. Or 2m people can't get a mortgage [1]. And that's with a cutoff of 54 feet of height! When all the insulation is retested, but for real, who knows how much will need remediation. [1] https://www.ft.com/content/913cc2ab-7fd5-4d41-a097-df408b4fa57d https://www.ft.com/content/913cc2ab-7fd5-4d41-a097-df408b4fa...

avianlyric 6y ago
At a certain point even experts need to assume that everyone else in their area is being above board, and not actively pushing for unsafe outcomes. In this case there were a number of companies who actively obfuscated critical safety information. That doesn’t make the designs and safely precautions of others invalid, they ultimately have to trust someone. You wouldn’t condemn the entire medical profession because one pharma company produce and sold a dangerous drug, obfuscating it’s risk and only highlighting its benefits. Doctors have to assume that manufactures are outright lying to them and regulators. The same applies to fire safety. Grenfell happened in large part because cladding manufactures obfuscated the failings of their products, and government ignored the advice given by experts. Fire safety experts had issues numerous warnings about Grenfell specifically, before it caught fire. So I reconcile to two points you bring up quite simply. Fire experts didn’t err, they highlighted the problems. Everyone else just ignored them, we’re the fools, not them.
- x0x0 6y ago
  > In this case there were a number of companies who actively obfuscated critical safety information Did companies lie? Sure, but companies lie all the time. The so-called experts failed wildly too. From the article: > Arconic realised its polyethylene-cored cladding had a horrendous reaction to fire following French tests in 2005, where it burned fiercely and obtained a basement ranking of Class E. Despite this, Arconic continued to market it as the much safer Class B (based on an earlier certification obtained using limited test data which had persuaded a respected British certification body, the British Board of Agrément, to produce the certificate apparently confirming this). The BBA is chock full of these "experts". Who turn out to have been more of an industry-whitewashing exercise. The costs to detect this would have been extremely low; for example, any "modeling" appears not to have been done based on reality (build a model, light a piece on fire) but rather on... who knows. > You wouldn’t condemn the entire medical profession because one pharma company produce and sold a dangerous drug, obfuscating it’s risk and only highlighting its benefits. The experts and the entire testing regime would, quite reasonably, be called wholly into question. Particularly when the experts proved susceptible to what sure looks like bribery. To wit, France managed to ban this stuff just fine.

by x0x0 6y ago

avianlyric 6y ago

At a certain point even experts need to assume that everyone else in their area is being above board, and not actively pushing for unsafe outcomes. In this case there were a number of companies who actively obfuscated critical safety information. That doesn’t make the designs and safely precautions of others invalid, they ultimately have to trust someone. You wouldn’t condemn the entire medical profession because one pharma company produce and sold a dangerous drug, obfuscating it’s risk and only highlighting its benefits. Doctors have to assume that manufactures are outright lying to them and regulators. The same applies to fire safety. Grenfell happened in large part because cladding manufactures obfuscated the failings of their products, and government ignored the advice given by experts. Fire safety experts had issues numerous warnings about Grenfell specifically, before it caught fire. So I reconcile to two points you bring up quite simply. Fire experts didn’t err, they highlighted the problems. Everyone else just ignored them, we’re the fools, not them.

x0x0 6y ago
> In this case there were a number of companies who actively obfuscated critical safety information Did companies lie? Sure, but companies lie all the time. The so-called experts failed wildly too. From the article: > Arconic realised its polyethylene-cored cladding had a horrendous reaction to fire following French tests in 2005, where it burned fiercely and obtained a basement ranking of Class E. Despite this, Arconic continued to market it as the much safer Class B (based on an earlier certification obtained using limited test data which had persuaded a respected British certification body, the British Board of Agrément, to produce the certificate apparently confirming this). The BBA is chock full of these "experts". Who turn out to have been more of an industry-whitewashing exercise. The costs to detect this would have been extremely low; for example, any "modeling" appears not to have been done based on reality (build a model, light a piece on fire) but rather on... who knows. > You wouldn’t condemn the entire medical profession because one pharma company produce and sold a dangerous drug, obfuscating it’s risk and only highlighting its benefits. The experts and the entire testing regime would, quite reasonably, be called wholly into question. Particularly when the experts proved susceptible to what sure looks like bribery. To wit, France managed to ban this stuff just fine.