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Doesn't that already happen though? A bridge fails due to water hanging from the cables making them asymmetric and coupling wind energy into bridge oscillation,

Doesn't that already happen though? A bridge fails due to water hanging from the cables making them asymmetric and coupling wind energy into bridge oscillation, and cables get redesigned with a spiral thingy to prevent that in the future. Asbestos turns out to cause cancer, and suddenly it's no longer an allowed building material. Or whatever.

infogulch 4y ago
TFA links to a 2014 post by Strong Towns [1] that describes exactly such a failure and espouses frustration at the lack of response. This post, among others, was cited as evidence for harassing the author over a short lapse of license (while it was not in active use), which was blown up into an uncharacteristic, disproportionate, and unwarranted demand to publicly sign documents admitting to dishonesty, misrepresentation, and fraud. The existence of such a document regardless of details would be enough to completely discredit and dismiss all of the author's speech. It's rank protectionism and speech silencing in the guise of following rules and procedures. [1]: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/12/3/just-another-pedestrian-killed https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/12/3/just-another-p...
- tbrownaw 4y ago
  ...a drunk driver hits people crossing in sleet (ie, low visibility) and a crosswalk is so certain to have helped that whoever didn't put one there deserves to be sued. I'm slightly curious to know how closely the actual reason for removing the half-assed crosswalk rather than turning it into a real one matches the clearly editorialized reason he's accusing them of having. I suppose there's no possible way it could have been something like "too many drivers won't respect it and it'll give pedestrians a false sense of safety" or such.
  - infogulch 4y ago
    By arguing the validity of the article's points you implicitly admit the space to discuss it and thus we fall directly into free speech. The important debate here is not whether Strong Towns is or is not correct, the debate is whether people can use government bureaucracy and process as a stick to silence speech they dislike. None of the allegations made by the license board have anything to do with the validity of Strong Towns' claims, just that he signed his name with "PE" while being fully qualified as a PE but with a lapsed license.
    - Aloha 4y ago
      I don't really agree with the perspective Strong Towns presents, but I'd agree that this is an egregious overstep. Like what Oregon was doing to a guy several years back.
      - alisonkisk 4y ago
wolverine876 4y ago
> Doesn't that already happen though? A bridge fails due to water hanging from the cables making them asymmetric and coupling wind energy into bridge oscillation, and cables get redesigned with a spiral thingy to prevent that in the future. Do you think it happens automatically or every time? It happens when ethical people make it happen, partly through organizations like Strong Towns.

infogulch 4y ago

TFA links to a 2014 post by Strong Towns [1] that describes exactly such a failure and espouses frustration at the lack of response. This post, among others, was cited as evidence for harassing the author over a short lapse of license (while it was not in active use), which was blown up into an uncharacteristic, disproportionate, and unwarranted demand to publicly sign documents admitting to dishonesty, misrepresentation, and fraud. The existence of such a document regardless of details would be enough to completely discredit and dismiss all of the author's speech. It's rank protectionism and speech silencing in the guise of following rules and procedures. [1]: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/12/3/just-another-pedestrian-killed https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2014/12/3/just-another-p...

tbrownaw 4y ago
...a drunk driver hits people crossing in sleet (ie, low visibility) and a crosswalk is so certain to have helped that whoever didn't put one there deserves to be sued. I'm slightly curious to know how closely the actual reason for removing the half-assed crosswalk rather than turning it into a real one matches the clearly editorialized reason he's accusing them of having. I suppose there's no possible way it could have been something like "too many drivers won't respect it and it'll give pedestrians a false sense of safety" or such.
- infogulch 4y ago
  By arguing the validity of the article's points you implicitly admit the space to discuss it and thus we fall directly into free speech. The important debate here is not whether Strong Towns is or is not correct, the debate is whether people can use government bureaucracy and process as a stick to silence speech they dislike. None of the allegations made by the license board have anything to do with the validity of Strong Towns' claims, just that he signed his name with "PE" while being fully qualified as a PE but with a lapsed license.
  - Aloha 4y ago
    I don't really agree with the perspective Strong Towns presents, but I'd agree that this is an egregious overstep. Like what Oregon was doing to a guy several years back.
    - alisonkisk 4y ago

wolverine876 4y ago

> Doesn't that already happen though? A bridge fails due to water hanging from the cables making them asymmetric and coupling wind energy into bridge oscillation, and cables get redesigned with a spiral thingy to prevent that in the future. Do you think it happens automatically or every time? It happens when ethical people make it happen, partly through organizations like Strong Towns.