5 ms·

When my parents were children, everyone heated their houses with an open fire, and if you did something wrong on any day it would kill you. When I was a child,

by ajb 6y ago

When my parents were children, everyone heated their houses with an open fire, and if you did something wrong on any day it would kill you. When I was a child, we had a boiler which was perfectly safe so long as you paid someone to service it once a year. Pretty much all the things my parents grew up with had no safety features, pretty much all the things I grew up with did. We have moved to a society where things are expected to be safe except for a number of well known exceptions, and this is good: "It is a profoundly erroneous truism, repeated by all copy-books and by eminent people when they are making speeches, that we should cultivate the habit of thinking of what we are doing. The precise opposite is the case. Civilization advances by extending the number of important operations which we can perform without thinking about them. Operations of thought are like cavalry charges in a battle — they are strictly limited in number, they require fresh horses, and must only be made at decisive moments. " Alfred North Whitehead As technologists it is our business to know and understand the consequences of the mechanisms we build. We value greater understanding and perception. But it is a mistake to project this value system onto society as a whole, since, as the quote shows, the worth of what we build is precisely to allow others to avoid this burden. That applies in safety as much as anything else. As technologists we can see that if a device has a 500W motor in it , it bears thinking about whether there are any safety issues. But consumers rightly expect any safety issues to be pointed out to them. What worries me is when companies are run by people who don't understand that all our safety is the result of a lot of work, and so don't realise the amount of diligence required.

donw 6y ago
Yes and no. Peleton should redesign the treadmill. It is needlessly hazardous, and a few small changes could easily remedy the problem without compromising the envelope of functionality for the device. But: I absolutely hate modern appliances with egregious safety buffers, as to reduce their functional envelope down to precisely what the designers imagined, and nothing more. Also, and I realize this is an unpopular stance: Danger is important for children. I'm not suggesting that we need to start giving kids industrial metal saws or machine guns as soon as they can walk, but we do need to stop hiding them from the world. Kids need to learn how to live their lives, and that means getting hurt and learning from it. Our job as engineers is, within the above limits, to try and keep those lessons from being lethal, disfiguring, or crippling.
- nate_meurer 6y ago
  > Danger is important for children. This is very, very true. I didn't use safety gates on my carpeted stairs when my kids were babies, and they learned to navigate stairs almost as soon as they could walk. I let them use scissors when they were really little too, and by the age of three they were expert little paper crafters. That said, I sure as shit wouldn't let them play around a running treadmill, even if I was in the room.
  - donw 6y ago
    Exactly.
  - cycomanic 6y ago
    I agree with you, the difference is what are perceivable dangers and what not. The problem about the treadmill is that for a child (and an adult) the treadmill is not immediately dangerous, in particular the danger of being sucked under. Modern playground design is actually taking this into consideration by designing with manageable dangers (climbing up high ladders etc.) but removing things that are not obviously dangerous, like for example gaps where heads can get stuck
  - knolax 6y ago
    There's a selection bias here. Parents whose children killed or mutilated themselves as toddlers are too busy or too aggrieved to be posting anecdotes on HN.
thegrimmest 6y ago
> We have moved to a society where things are expected to be safe except for a number of well known exceptions, and this is good I disagree. All we're doing is creating a false sense of security, propped up by a government which is mostly incompetent and often abjectly corrupt when deciding what is "safe". For reference see the absolute littany of chemicals with which we have been poisoned for the last half-century, and the outragously scandalous conduct of our governemnt in failing to protect us from them. When people know that there's no assurance that the things they put into their homes and give their children are "safe", and that they bear total responsibiltiy for outcomes, they tend to be a lot more careful. This is a good thing. We want thoughtful careful individuals making decisions and shaping markets. We want to encourage people to think more, not less. We want people who think to succeed, and poeple who don't to fail, and to bear full and total responsibility for their failures. Otherwise there is no progress.
- mLuby 6y ago
  > When people know that there's no assurance that the things…are "safe", … they tend to be a lot more careful. This is a good thing. No, it's not. I shouldn't have to check the piping of my gas heating system for leaks, or the wiring of my lights for shorts, or my car not to fall apart on the highway, or the food I bought to poison me. If I, and everyone else, had to do those things, I wouldn't have time to do anything else, so I wouldn't bother with those things and I'd live in a stone hut. You could argue that safety standards aren't strict enough, or aren't enforced (yes, we should address that litany of chemicals!), but there's no question that safety standards significantly improve our collective quality of life. P.S. Add "computer security" to that list of things I shouldn't need to care about.
  - thegrimmest 6y ago
    The absence of specific regulation doesn't mean that you'd have to check everything yourself (however "trust but verify" is a saying for a reason). It would rather mean that the companies providing these services would be competing to most convincingly prove to you that their products are safe for your home and guaranteed to function. This competition would bear out in your heating or electric company guaranteeing their installation and agreeing to be liable for any damages caused by faults in their product. Your car already has such guarantees and warranties, and they are the result of market pressure. Computer security functions similarly - top companies would complete to provide guarantees of security by offering to cover losses that result from breaches. This already happens too. It's not as bleak as you make it out to be. Also we would all be much healthier if we lived in stone huts.
127 6y ago
The main difference here is that perfectly functional, working as intended boiler won't suddenly suck you in and kill you. The actual comparison here is industrial lathes. And you are welcome to read what can happen with those when safety is lax.
- machello13 6y ago
  You’re missing the forest for the trees. The post is about the philosophy of engineering safety, not what the best analogy is.
Balgair 6y ago
Related: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-... The Fremen Mirage (named after Dune's Fremen) is the myth that harder conditions produce harder/tougher peoples. Dr. Deveraux goes into very extensive depth as to why this is a myth with a lot of historical evidence. Though the series of articles is focused on war, I feel that the Fremen Mirage is also one that can be pointed toward safety culture as well. Thank you very much for the Whitehead quote, I'll be saving that one.
lolsal 6y ago
I am very much a self-sufficient, independent, think-for-yourself kind of person that scowls at stories like this Peloton one (and the stove, and the boiler) where I tend to think "don't touch the stove". Your comment here is making me re-evaluate that, specifically the Whitehead quote. I think we can strive for both, but I never realized I was biased one way or the other until it was pointed out this way. Thanks!

by ajb 6y ago

donw 6y ago

Yes and no. Peleton should redesign the treadmill. It is needlessly hazardous, and a few small changes could easily remedy the problem without compromising the envelope of functionality for the device. But: I absolutely hate modern appliances with egregious safety buffers, as to reduce their functional envelope down to precisely what the designers imagined, and nothing more. Also, and I realize this is an unpopular stance: Danger is important for children. I'm not suggesting that we need to start giving kids industrial metal saws or machine guns as soon as they can walk, but we do need to stop hiding them from the world. Kids need to learn how to live their lives, and that means getting hurt and learning from it. Our job as engineers is, within the above limits, to try and keep those lessons from being lethal, disfiguring, or crippling.

nate_meurer 6y ago
> Danger is important for children. This is very, very true. I didn't use safety gates on my carpeted stairs when my kids were babies, and they learned to navigate stairs almost as soon as they could walk. I let them use scissors when they were really little too, and by the age of three they were expert little paper crafters. That said, I sure as shit wouldn't let them play around a running treadmill, even if I was in the room.
- donw 6y ago
  Exactly.
- cycomanic 6y ago
  I agree with you, the difference is what are perceivable dangers and what not. The problem about the treadmill is that for a child (and an adult) the treadmill is not immediately dangerous, in particular the danger of being sucked under. Modern playground design is actually taking this into consideration by designing with manageable dangers (climbing up high ladders etc.) but removing things that are not obviously dangerous, like for example gaps where heads can get stuck
- knolax 6y ago
  There's a selection bias here. Parents whose children killed or mutilated themselves as toddlers are too busy or too aggrieved to be posting anecdotes on HN.

thegrimmest 6y ago

> We have moved to a society where things are expected to be safe except for a number of well known exceptions, and this is good I disagree. All we're doing is creating a false sense of security, propped up by a government which is mostly incompetent and often abjectly corrupt when deciding what is "safe". For reference see the absolute littany of chemicals with which we have been poisoned for the last half-century, and the outragously scandalous conduct of our governemnt in failing to protect us from them. When people know that there's no assurance that the things they put into their homes and give their children are "safe", and that they bear total responsibiltiy for outcomes, they tend to be a lot more careful. This is a good thing. We want thoughtful careful individuals making decisions and shaping markets. We want to encourage people to think more, not less. We want people who think to succeed, and poeple who don't to fail, and to bear full and total responsibility for their failures. Otherwise there is no progress.

mLuby 6y ago
> When people know that there's no assurance that the things…are "safe", … they tend to be a lot more careful. This is a good thing. No, it's not. I shouldn't have to check the piping of my gas heating system for leaks, or the wiring of my lights for shorts, or my car not to fall apart on the highway, or the food I bought to poison me. If I, and everyone else, had to do those things, I wouldn't have time to do anything else, so I wouldn't bother with those things and I'd live in a stone hut. You could argue that safety standards aren't strict enough, or aren't enforced (yes, we should address that litany of chemicals!), but there's no question that safety standards significantly improve our collective quality of life. P.S. Add "computer security" to that list of things I shouldn't need to care about.
- thegrimmest 6y ago
  The absence of specific regulation doesn't mean that you'd have to check everything yourself (however "trust but verify" is a saying for a reason). It would rather mean that the companies providing these services would be competing to most convincingly prove to you that their products are safe for your home and guaranteed to function. This competition would bear out in your heating or electric company guaranteeing their installation and agreeing to be liable for any damages caused by faults in their product. Your car already has such guarantees and warranties, and they are the result of market pressure. Computer security functions similarly - top companies would complete to provide guarantees of security by offering to cover losses that result from breaches. This already happens too. It's not as bleak as you make it out to be. Also we would all be much healthier if we lived in stone huts.

127 6y ago

The main difference here is that perfectly functional, working as intended boiler won't suddenly suck you in and kill you. The actual comparison here is industrial lathes. And you are welcome to read what can happen with those when safety is lax.

machello13 6y ago
You’re missing the forest for the trees. The post is about the philosophy of engineering safety, not what the best analogy is.

Balgair 6y ago

Related: https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-part-i-war-at-the-dawn-of-civilization/ https://acoup.blog/2020/01/17/collections-the-fremen-mirage-... The Fremen Mirage (named after Dune's Fremen) is the myth that harder conditions produce harder/tougher peoples. Dr. Deveraux goes into very extensive depth as to why this is a myth with a lot of historical evidence. Though the series of articles is focused on war, I feel that the Fremen Mirage is also one that can be pointed toward safety culture as well. Thank you very much for the Whitehead quote, I'll be saving that one.

lolsal 6y ago

I am very much a self-sufficient, independent, think-for-yourself kind of person that scowls at stories like this Peloton one (and the stove, and the boiler) where I tend to think "don't touch the stove". Your comment here is making me re-evaluate that, specifically the Whitehead quote. I think we can strive for both, but I never realized I was biased one way or the other until it was pointed out this way. Thanks!